Evil eye: Just an aesthetic or truly angelic? Tracing it’s lore beyond the closet

As you get ready to say goode to 2024 and usher in 2025, you may be considering fortifying yourself and your home with some dependable paraphernelia. The evil eye is of course a top option in this regard. But, how real is the protection it’s believed to disseminate? Has fast fashion diluted the legend-attested efficacy of the the evil eye? ‘Eyes without a face Got no human grace You’re eyes without a face’. Billy Idol may have been singing about disassociation, madness and the pain of a broken relationship, but these lines in essence also capture the incessant gaze, be it indifferent, benevolent or malevolent that we all live our lives embalmed in. “Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul”, said John Dryden. Now for those who don’t really believe in the science of energies, you may believe jealousy just rots one from the inside. But even a mere tap into the world of spirituality, meditation and crystal work will leave you with a deep knowing of the very palpable reality of ‘nazar’. And ‘nazar’ happens to be just one manifestation of the sentiment that the whole subtext of the all-pervasive evil eye, is believed to act as a shield against. Now nazar may be desi, but envy as a sentiment is timeless, and apparently so is the lore of the evil eye. If you’re a non-believer, to you it may be just the focus of a kitschy earring or pendant, a quirky linen dress, or some basic mules (here’s looking at you Gigi Hadid). And even in that, the pervasiveness of the cobalt blue, ever-awake eye cannot quite be categorised as ‘niche’ anymore. It has grown to be a legitimate sub-category for jewellery catalogues, with it’s aesthetic value also making quite a strong mark as it trickled its way into the thrifty underbelly of the fashion world, now cemented in it. Greek-born designer Ileana Makri is the one widely credited with having allowed the motif a much larger, and eventually worldwide audience through her jewellery line showcased in Barney’s New York in 1999. Truly unique in its colour palettes and allegedly talismanic air, the imprint it made in the world of jewels was unsurprising. Although it may be too bright and defining for the luxury markets per se, given the then-surging, now-dying quiet luxury paradigm, it regardless, has still managed to nestle its way into the closets of Gigi Hadid, Rihanna, Kim Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif to name a few, as some minor detail. And in all likelihood, yours too. But now we come to the real question… …is it truly mystical?Let us answer your question with a question. No matter the magic or the logic of the question, are you likely to assign the aforementioned adjective to an idea that has persed for over 5,000 years, and is somehow still supremely relevant in pop culture today? Excavated in one of Mesopotamia’s oldest cities, Tell Brak (which is now modern day Syria), the evil eye was originally more than just a lone eye. Think of its earliest manifestation as more of an ocular socket, found carved onto alabaster idols. The evil eye as we know it today, were interpretations of this very design, the first of their kind dating back to 1500 BCE, around the Mediterranean. The dinct blue hue also has a science behind it — the oxide-rich Egyptian glazed mud which turned to the cool colour upon baking. Incidentally, Egyptian mythology interprets the train of thought we’re on, as the ‘eye of Horus’, the God of healing, knowledge and protection from evil. And as far as its global footprint goes, the evil eye as a concept and in paraphernalia, has been found across the cultures of Phoenicians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans and the Ottomans, most of its cultural mobility being attributed to the expansion of trade and eventual civilisations. Now while archaeological prowess has allowed us to localise the origins of the design, the concept of the unholy gaze is actually all-pervasive. Be it the Grecian lore of the gorgon sers Medusa, Stheno and Euryale who could turn their subjects to stone with their gaze or the Polish legend of a man who was bestowed with so evil a gaze that he chose to cut his eyes out to save his loved ones from the impact — the pervasiveness of the gaze and sight and the unavoidability of it all, also finds mention in The Bible and the Quran. Frederick Thomas Elworthy’s The Evil Eye: The Classic Account of an Ancient Superstition is an insightful read in this regard. If this wasn’t enough to convince you, Greek philosopher Plutarch through his Symposiacs, explains the scientific reality of the human eye being able to release invisible rays, capable of bringing harm to children and small animals. He also touched upon the possibility of some eyes being more negatively potent in this regard. Sometimes reality IS stranger than fiction. Of course, only if you’d like to believe it.