Piercing History With Every Metal

Maybe it is not the ornaments but the intimacy with which we preserve them stays with us a lifetime.

- Rini Barman

I have always been scared of needles; my first tetanus injection was a massacre. The anticipation would hit my bodily fears and I would resist a week before that. I remember asking all sorts of random questions about the human anatomy and tiring out my aunts. Probably this is why parents of female 2-year olds prefer to get most piercings at one stroke. If I recall correctly, doctors would multi-task in the 90s, at least in my small town. They kept all kinds of necessary aids (including few toffees on the side) for piercings.

For adults, toffees get replaced by one single line—‘You won’t even feel it’. If there is more reluctance, perhaps ‘All of this will be history in no time’ does the job. The doctor reiterates these with an eerie sense of confidence to all his patients. That exact tone of manufactured kindness, which now seems notorious and slightly irritating. The quick equation of ready-to-eat toffees with the loss of memory compels me to think a little deeper. Even though the doctors would rather have us erase these ‘pricky’ moments in what may be called a ‘smooth’ life ahead, I feel, body piercings are much more than physical perforations. They create newer spaces in the body, spaces that take us into myriad journeys with jewellery. The memories with every recovery have so much to offer in terms of how we perceive ornaments and which ought to be worn where.

Taking on the Ornamentmetal Hierarchy