Discoveries in the Pink City.
Jaipur, India.
 Imagine walking through a densely crowded street, not wider than a driveway, supporting however a jostle of trucks, rickshas, bicycles, people and livestock. On either side are open sewers and the constant push of traffic makes you feel like any moment you could end up with at least one of your feet in something really awful. The road is paved with a wide variety of pattie, left behind by hooved traffic and even humans, which adds to the dance. Several strides before you reach it, you can already smell the place were every man in the neighborhood is answering natures call. Despite it's pungence, quite a popular place!
Where we are going, I've no idea. How we get back I've also no idea. The dodging I've been doing for the past ten minutes makes me feel like I must have turned a thousand corners. Our host however, saunters, oblivious to the traffic, sometimes turning around completely to explain something. He's from here, he knows the dance. The "deshi" way of doing things. Once you've got a guide, you're not lost here.  We've come to Jaipur to shop for stones, like last year. But this time will be different, we're experienced. We're being led by our host Mr. Jain, whose family has been in the gem business for generations. Entering his house through the usual dark narrow passageway, we emerge into an interior courtyard. Balconies above us with bright blue railings, doors, and shutters gleam in the hazy sunlight. After a dark and twisting trip up flights of stairs we reach a door and entering, are greeted by a throng of staring dark faces. These are dealers, already lined up, bags in hand, even hidden muslin bags of rough dangle under an African trader's caftan. The power is out, as it often is, adding to the dusk of the office, which looks over Johari Jewelry Bazaar in the Old City.
The scene awaiting us last year in this office was similar, and we were only narrowly allowed escape. All day dealers kept filing in, hour after hour. After many subtle motions we finally had to make a stink to be granted leave. Volker went back the next day to continue looking at dealer after dealers wares. Strangely enough in contrast to the western style of sales, here you are first forced to look at mountains of crap. If you are stupid enough to buy it, they are elated. But eventually, if you are really patient you'll get to see the good stuff. With this experience from last year we planned a longer stay. Anticipating an entire week in the Pink City, Volker looked forward to the show, the food, and the innumerable cups of chai. The tea is used as a kind of sales augmenting lubricant. It works, and it's wonderful. Teeny cups of triple strength tea, half milk, spiced with ginger, cardamom and about 8 teaspoons of sugar. We walk through more narrow lanes and alleys to Mr. Jain's family home and workshop. His father greets us, looking up from his workstation on the marble floor. An older man, he's still cutting and helping run the workshop. When he learns I speak Hindi, he invites me into his puja room and gives me a book of color pictures of his favorite temples and saints. It's mine to keep, he explains. He's written a book about gemstones, it's in Hindi though, but he shrugs and he gives me that too. Thumbing through it, I see light refraction indexes and other complex gemological explantions, but then I notice that most of the pages are elaborate sanskrit prayers. In India, religion is mixed into all corners of life, like ginger is mixed into the chai. In the other room, Mr. Jain is already seated on the floor, demonstrating to Volker how he cuts right through a chunk of iolite. 
Jaipur is an anomaly in the world of gemstone cutting, at least the world that's all too familiar to us as denizens of the Idar-Oberstein gemstone industry, an industry a blazen with the latest computer technology and automation. In our minds we've grown to expect rooms of gleaming machinery, bright lighting, workers in crisp coveralls. But the scenes confronting us as we visited lapidaries in Jaipur were fantastic. We go downstairs to the workshop. On a low table sit flat electric lapidary wheels. Every thing is soiled and worn in the typical Indian fashion. The men sit on mats on the hard, cold floor all day. Extension cords drape over dripping wheels. Finding plugs to be too much trouble, wires are just precariously jammed into the outlets. All possible surface areas sport grime. The room is dimly lit, and open onto the street with all it's movement and sound. The noise level is incomparable. I let my ears wander, taking in the competing sounds of at least 20 radios blaring Hindi pop, the crackle and crash of traffic, every now and then a bell ringing, from bicycle, cow, puja, and the rat-a-tat music of diesel engines and voices rising and falling.  Passersby stare into the workshop at the two "goreh". And we stare at them. India: Theater of the Acute Stare. Get used to it.
Volker has the great idea to write an historical article about the Jaipur gemstone industry. We ask around to all our contacts if there isn't some sort of factual text already written on this subject. It seems not, so we decided to interview someone in the business to extract some facts ourselves. The meeting is arranged in the LMB Hotel, which boasts a sort of upper middle class clientele, meaning it's probably safe to eat there. Like usual in restaurants of this kind they have air conditioning, which means there are no windows. Rajastan's buildings are all styled in defence from the sun, so at the LMB you enter from glaring sunlight into a myopic lounge lizard haze. Ventilation is rare and your olfactory nerves instantly transmit the scent of that all too ubiquitous Indian icon, the mothball. We are seated in a back booth and attempt in vain to keep our host from ordering too much food for us. This is one of the things you must get used to. You will be forced to eat and drink. You will never be allowed to pick up the tab. You must actually yell "NO" the fourth time they attempt to dish out more. A quiet no always indicates yes to the Indian ear. We began by asking our friend for a few basic facts about the gemstone industry. Obviously confusing his "crores" he confidently stated that there are 2.5 million people in the gemstone industry. We happened to know that this was the entire population of Jaipur (officially, that is), so we took the leap of logic and removed a zero. He also gave us a date for the founding of the city, which was about 400 years too early. His confidence in the city's dominance in the industry was quite awe inspiring, and he continued to make claims such as, all Kashmir Sapphires go through Jaipur, because no one else knows how to cut them. Not that we saw any, however.  We continued taking notes as he explained more of his industry's accomplishments, all the while chewing his way patiently through the immense quality of food he'd ordered. But we knew we still hadn't found that "Urquelle" of knowledge that we needed. Asking around during our week in Jaipur we were not able to compile much more. A brother from the presitigious Gem Palace had allegedly given a talk on this subject, but no one was able to locate his sheet of notes during our visit. We were promised this via fax, which till now hasn't arrived. All our collected facts, dates and quantities squirmed and rolled away to be refuted the next day, and the only thing we are really able to report in all certainty is what we experienced ourselves.
The city was founded in the Moghul tradition almost three centuries ago by Raja Jai Singh. A great patron of the arts, he summoned the finest craftsmen to build and adorn his palaces, his enterage and his concubines. As the years went by, Jaipur's reputation for high level workmanship flourished, and having endured, today enjoys a vigorous market in quality crafts. Wholesalers from all over India and the world come to gather stock. Most businesses are family owned, and the age old traditions of fathers handing down skills to their children are still in full force. There are many very wealthy families in the business, and connections between families spanning generations can be your good luck, or your loss. In contrast to the US chain store marketplace In India small shops are the norm and Jaipur's bazaars are abuzz with entrepreneurial energy because of this.  The complete quality spectrum is covered by Jaipur's jewelry and gem industries. We visited large factories profiting the most from low labor costs, by producing western style jewelry for US and Asian shopping channels. Large markets for expensive merchandise in the Middle East and Asia have had a major influence on the current styles being produced today. By demanding a higher level of craftsmanship these markets have raised the standard in some factories to a good commercial quality level.
The same is true for lapidaries. If you do have the luck to find a quality shop, prices can be affordable but the best materials in high demand will not be cheap. What is available in masse and for little cash are the low to mid range qualities. The industry now relies on stones supplies from other parts of India and the world market, but Jaipur's mines once produced, crystal, amethyst, garnet, aquamarine and flourite. Up until about 20 years ago, when electrical motors became the norm in lapidaries, most cutting was done by human power on a rope driven grinding spindle. A loose string attached to both ends of a long bamboo pole was wrapped around the spindle, yoyo fashion, and using a back and forth sawing motion the spindle was brought into motion. Today, despite electricity the gemstone industry lags behind in terms of technology. Jaipur cutters are still not able to manufacture consistent calibrated material. Even sapphires are being sent to Bangkok for treatment and cutting and are then reimported into India. After giving our thanks and final goodbyes to Mr. Jain, we opt for a ricksha back to the hotel. The pavement bristles with life, humanity incroaches. So many faces vying for your attention, some more or less predatory. Everyone approaching you wants to do business with you. Our ricksha driver is friendly, but we're tired of friendly people, that's why we're not walking the short distance. His jovial banter is pleasant enough and eventually he manages to engage us, even to extract that dreaded secret. Turns out he too has a brother in the business... |