Come September I will be returning home and will get to hold my long forgotten friends close to my bosom. I will admire their unblemished beauty with ferocious concentration. I will count them slowly in the stillness of a locker room.

Diamond bracelets, necklaces, rings, anklets and my diamond studded Omega that I left behind in the locker to fly to USA will feel the warmth of my body again.

It's been over four years since I wore my jewelry and paraded amongst aunties and their daughters-in-law in parties or at marriages amongst relatives.

My diamonds have been lying neglected and forgotten behind thick steel walls. The desire to wear them has not tempted me even once. Is it because I'm living far away from the high flyers of the Indian society where the women keep an eye on another's jewelry; counting how many necklaces so and so owns, how big are the solitaries are on another's fingers or is it because I have been able to escape the destructive hold by the unease I feel when I look at my engagement ring and wonder if it's a Conflict Diamond smeared with blood?

When I delivered my daughter I asked for a laptop instead of a rock from my husband. When my birthday came I wanted an iPod instead of a bracelet and on our anniversary a trip instead of shiny earrings.

My friends and family members laughed. They wondered whether my husband's love for electronics had rubbed off on me. Where they implying that my fading love for diamonds made me less of a woman and more like a practical man?

These little stones lost their magic on me just as did the Tush shawls and fur coats.

Someone's misery or death to feed an unquenchable thirst for a rich man's status quo is barbaric.

Do we know for sure what we cherish and wear are not Conflict diamonds?

Sure, Diamond stores give us certificates that they legitimate diamonds to appease our wanton souls but does our heart agree to the greed we are perpetuating?

Aren't we whoring ourselves a bit just to wear those trinkets? Batting our eyes at our husbands, becoming hussies to get that little solitaire on our fingers? Or men buying the rocks either to appease for the mischief done behind the little woman's back, or love (duped by shallow preaching by society) or worse still as a symbol of one's bank account?

Diamonds aren't forever. From experience I know that though the diamond stores sells the diamond at a certain value another store will value it less. Thus the value of the diamond is only as good as selling it back from the store bought from.

Or the 'Certified' diamonds for which one has to pay whole amount upfront. While this has been met with approval by the middle class, the rich however are not taken by it.

Most prefer to deal with their family jewelers or friends who sell diamonds of rich families who have fallen through stressful times.

If that doesn't make you smell a racket what would?

Shady deals are known to happen. We pay a certain amount on paper and the rest is hard cash. It is to the advantage of both the seller and buyer to hoodwink the government.

But then again, the government has been hoodwinking us, the tax payers since the independence of India, squeezing us rich folks dry of what we have earned and yet the country remains in a slump.

Politicians come to power and empty the coffers; so what difference does it make if my little diamond is not fully legally bought?

Ah, the Indian thinking could excuse just about any sort of behavior. Thinking along those lines what would then stop a diamond importer from buying Conflict diamonds and passing them off as legit?

And we could be closing our eyes to the evil happening right before our eyes. Are those diamonds worn by the rich and famous really legit? How can we be sure that the sparkling beauties aren't the tears and despair of a devastated African child?

Kanye West's song - "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" seems to say it all

    see, a part of me sayin' keep shinin',
    how? when I know of the blood diamonds
    though it's thousands of miles away
    Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today
    over here, its a drug trade, we die from drugs
    over there, they die from what we buy from drugs
    the diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charmses
    I thought my Jesus Piece was so harmless
    'til I seen a picture of a shorty armless
    and here's the conflict
    it's in a black person's soul to rock that gold
    spend ya whole life tryna get that ice
    on a polar rugby it look so nice