London: In turbulent times, women don't just survive; we accessorise strategically. My great-grandmother crossed the border at night with a bundle of gold tucked into her saree, every footstep silenced under fear and moonlight. I like to think she would have approved of my own wartime handbag strategy. Practical glamour, you might call it, though there was nothing frivolous about the intent. Her bundle of gold built a home in a new country. Mine, I suspect, would buy me a way out if things came undone.

My handbag took on the mantle of a life saver like Hermione Grager's bag in the Harry Potter series. Faced with the threat of Death Eaters descending on her tribe of friends, at any moment after Voldemort's return, she wanted to be threat-ready, so she enchanted a small beaded handbag with an Undetectable Extension Charm that she made sure to carry everywhere with her.

And while I wasn't quite ducking death in bullet format, certainly no boots-on-the-ground, and by no standards am I Marie Colvin in degree of courage, but missile interceptions and shielding alarms do tend to sharpen one's sense of preparedness. My handbag became my loyal companion; poised beside my bed like a guard dog in leather. It followed me everywhere: to the grocer, to the neighbour's flat, and to buy milk. Inside it: passport, papers, a bottle of water, and a power bank. Because Armageddon should never mean a dead phone.

Medicines and basic supplies formed the first stratum; ORS, painkillers, antibiotics, sanitary napkins, bandages. Each item chosen with the precision of a field medic. A quiet calculation ticked in my head about what could become a tourniquet if I needed one.

Then came the fripperies, or so I told myself. A spare set of clothes rolled tight into a pouch, sunglasses of the Jackie O persuasion, a lip balm that smelled faintly of rose, and a silk scrunchie. The logic was simple: dignity looks better when hydrated and well-coiffed. Even in chaos, one doesn't entirely abandon the mirror.

We learn quickly what becomes essential, and what becomes ritual. Staying away from glass windows during an air raid and painting one's nails between news bulletins. Small rebellions that keep our sanity intact.

I slid in the thinnest book I owned. Alan Bennett's The Clothes They Stood Up In. The title alone felt like a private joke between me and the world. A therapeutic thought about a slim paperback when the walls are shaking: its weight, its pages, its promise of another life continuing elsewhere. Make what you will of my thought process.

And then, my own pouch of gold. Tucked somewhere between the paracetamol and the poetry, those coins and bangles glinted like a secret inheritance.

Indian women learn early that gold isn't decoration; it's the emergency exit in metallic form. It is insurance and identity, and you could argue, feminist defiance in economies where our labour remains undervalued. My great-grandmother's gold was her passport; mine, perhaps, my peace of mind.

So yes, while others fretted about currencies and crypto, I packed grace and gold into my handbag and slept soundly. My handbag, in the end, became a repository of my insecurity - both feminine and financial. And that, perhaps, is quite telling.