One of my cousins recently told me with much delight that her mother had purchased some rare diamond containing diamond jewelry for her dowry and I really did not know how to respond. I don't understand womens preoccupation with jewelry, the engagement ring solitaire and all those things, I just don't understand. How does shiny stuff create so much happiness, its shiny, and rare but it has no utility. Well ok it can make us look pretty, but honestly for most women out there, weightloss is far more beautifying and I'm sure husbands, boyfriends will agree to that. How how do cheating husbands such as Kobe Bryant manage to buy their wife a huge diamond and that makes things ok. I don't get it.

I've seen families in financial crisis but the women will not part with their gold bangles and if they do they turn into big drama queens , "choorian bechnee parein sob!" (Sorry for those who don't know Urdu.)Sorry, I don't think it's such a noble deed. Donating ones kidney is.

Then there are women walking around with mustaches, still wearing their gold bangles. They cannot afford laser hair removal, they cannot afford medical treatment for their hormonal problems, I want to yell at them for gods sake! sell your jewelry! what good is it on a woman with a mustache!

Here's an idea. Remember the recent tsunami disaster, huge numbers of people perished. Well in Africa that many number of children die every year, even more in fact, just due to hunger alone. Think about your little baby sister/ brother /son/ daughter dying from hunger. I come from Pakistan which is an impoverished country but most people are not starving the worst of them manage to forage for scraps of food. In Africa there is no food and no water and no medicines for very basic problems. So ladies think how happy you were when you got that diamond ring,but think how even more happy you could become if you sold it and saved a few hundred lives. We can look equally beautiful in costume jewelry, and even more beautiful sans jewlry in a slimmer healthier body? Don't believe me, watch an Indian movie.

Bite the bullet, sell some of that jewelry lying in the lockers in the bank, change your own life and save some lives.