The dazzling truth: A look at India's diamond kingdom, Surat

Hardik Shah lives in a modest 1BHK apartment in Surat, which he shares with his brother’s family of five, which includes his parents as well. Earlier, he lived in a larger house on the outskirts of the city where his parents had a small farm. Due to financial problems, his brother’s and his own education was truncated at Class X and they had to find jobs. The family had to sell their farm and home and move closer to the city where he is now employed by the all-encompassing diamond industry, one of the main arteries that fuels the city’s economy. Shah, like the thousands who work in diamond factories, may have little interest in Section 377 or the outcome of the Davos WEF, or why Trump tweets, but give him a rough diamond and watch it shine with his expertise. So much so, that if you set him loose in a wedding hall dripping in diamonds, he is most likely to sort out the fakes from the real ones, decipher the caratage and clouds all within a sweep of an expert eye, relegating several socialites’ rocks to the bottom of the sea.

Surat, once denounced as the epicentre of plague in 1994, is now well on its way to turning into one of India’s “smart cities’’, carrying with it a precious industry in a real sense. Here are the facts: 90 per cent of the world’s diamonds (all of which by the way, could fit into a double decker bus) are sorted, cut and polished in Surat. “However, these are small diamonds,” says Pratik Shah, Head of Operations of S.

Vinodkumr Diamonds Pvt Ltd., whose state of the art diamond assorting, cutting and polishing centre is a fine example of how the diamond industry is outfitted today. “The larger stones are handled in Tel Aviv.” Where once humble hands and laser vision eyes were able to spot a flaw, shape, cut and polish a diamond to a dazzling brilliance, today sophisticated machinery and technology does that in a jiffy. Nonetheless, human intervention is needed at every turn. Even as machines spit out shapes and sizes, human control decides the final destiny of the stone.With the profusion of laboratory diamonds (which even a naked expert eye can’t distinguish), there’s been a growing concern among consumers not just to get more value for their rupee, but to know more about the stone they own. Which begs the question: how forever is a diamond?

Enter Forevermark Diamond Institute, also based in Surat. Through 17 rigourous processes and five quality checks, Forevermark is able to evaluate your rock, give you its provenance that can be traced to its origin, and the mine from where it was procured. We will save you the technological maze that a diamond is put through, but, “at the end of the process the consumer can be rest assured that the diamond matches up to the 4Cs it is claimed to be, that it is natural and not treated artificially,”says Sachin Jain, President, Forevermark India, proudly. “Forevermark knows that between two diamonds with the same 4Cs one will be more beautiful and it’s our job to tell you exactly which one it is. The confusion in the market affects the diamond industry as well,”’ he continues, which is why today, numerous retailers are part of the Forevermark grading programme, displaying proudly in a separate section FM diamonds and its value (which, thanks to the due diligence, may we add, pushes up the price a bit). To understand the vastness of the operation, the center can grade 3,50,000 diamonds annually and inscribe 5,50,000 diamonds. “For a consumer who wants to know that he has paid the correct value for his jewellery, this is not paying a higher price, but the correct price,” Jain counters. Once all the gradations and evaluations are done, each diamond is marked and numbered. We’re told that the inscribing does not alter the value of the piece a whit.

Given the synergy Forevermark has with designers and manufacturers, it often showcases trends. This time around, (as the visuals show), trends point towards ‘stackable’ jewellery. Which means, a choker can be a bracelet, earrings can turn into pendants, and so on. What’s meant to be a ring may turn up in your hair. But such is the magic of dazzling stones!