From the grimy canvas bag, Mr. Lal slowly pulled a glittering strand of dark citrine nuggets.  Like frozen taffy, they glowed in the shaft of sunlight slanting into the small room from the courtyard outside.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Gently placing the strand on the woven cloth in front of us, he lined it up with dozens of others that had, over the part three hours, been produced from various cloth, canvas and plastic bags.  All together, they shone in a disheveled rainbow of colours and textures… blue-green aquamarine, purple amethyst, pale rose quartz, luminous moonstone, deep orange carnelian, inky blue iolite and glowing pearls.

The shabby setting was a far cry from the treasures within.  Our friend and guide had steered us through the insanely frenzied streets of old Jaipur, capital city of the desert state of Rajasthan, in India, into the Johari Market, the heart of the infamous gem district.  Turning into a narrow lane, off the chaotic main street, we had picked our way through soft heaps of cow dung and piles of reeking garbage, had dodged bicycles, auto-rickshaws and motorcycles that hurtled with startling speed from every direction.  Another turn down an even smaller alley, between carts pulled by donkeys and pushed by turbaned men, through lines of brightly draped women, and rickety stands piled with dusty fruit, vegetables and mounds of bright yellow and orange marigolds.  We had stopped several times to ask for directions, and finally stood before an archway painted with garlands of flowers and leaves that had long since faded and chipped. Its intricate design suggested a more prosperous past and invited us to enter its gloomy depths.  A dark, uneven flagstone passageway led us to a small, lavender blue inner courtyard drenched in sunlight and ringed by a spiral staircase.  A voice from above urged us up, and so we climbed four floors to the top, where we were greeted by an elegant woman in a rosebud pink sari, who beckoned us inside.  We removed our sandals and stepped over the threshold to stand on the cool, marble mosaic floor of a sparsely furnished, rather dingy yellow room approximately 20’ square. 

This was surely not the right place.

I had been assured of an introduction to one of the most important and prosperous gem merchants in this city, world renowned for its gem trade…to a well-connected man who, we were told, was sought by dealers the world over.  It was the much-anticipated culmination of a trip to this vast and complicated country to discover new and old ideas about jewelry, to find refreshed inspiration for my work and to reconnect with a childhood spent here, in the dying days of the British Raj.

For a month, I had zigzagged around this northern desert state by bus, train, jeep, auto-rickshaw and camel, visiting cities, ancient fort towns and rural villages.  I had seen opulent riches of unimaginable wealth in museums and palaces, watched middle-class women pick through vegetables in city markets, and poor women gather hay in country fields or pour hot tar onto pot-holed roads.  All were adorned with beautiful jewelry and draped in the soft folds of elegant saris.  I had watched craftsmen in dark, grubby huts shape gold and silver into bracelets and anklets and toe rings, and wandered bustling markets filled with stalls and shops stuffed with bangles and cloth and leather shoes.

In India, adornment is fundamental to life.  Heavily symbolic and stunning in variety and detail, everyone and everything is adorned…temples full of rich carvings, walls and ceiling in homes painted with colourful murals, cars, rickshaw and market stalls festooned with garlands of flowers and gaudy tinsel, and city streets brilliantly lit with tangled strands of twinkling lights.  Clothes are trimmed with gold and silver braid, beads and embroidery; shoes are shaped into pointy toes, embellished with intricate stitching and pierced with patterned holes.  The Hindi verb alam-kara, to adorn, to decorate, literally means “to make enough”.  Simply, anything without adornment is considered not enough.

Most of all, every part of the female body, the manifestation of ultimate beauty and a celebration of nature, is an opportunity for decoration.  Sixteen different adornments, from head to toe, are part of every Indian woman’s dress, including jewelry for hair, nose, ears, arms, thumb, fingers, ankles, toes and waist.  They include a bindi, the ornamental dot between her eyebrows to signify the mystical third eye; her makeup, perfume and her bridal attire.  Women literally carry the wealth of the family in the jewelry they wear, and the reverence and attention paid to the ornamentation of these women, in a society steeped in a tradition of keeping them hidden in one way or another, is just one of the puzzling contradictions.

My heart and mind struggled daily to understand this rich, complex, and frustrating culture.  As well as the rigorous physical challenges of dust, noise, pollution, aggressive hawkers and beggars, of appalling sanitary conditions, unreliable and decaying transportation and dubious food, there were moments of jaw-dropping beauty and splendour in glorious palaces, in the intricately carved white marble temples and fiery desert sunsets.  Graceful women in bright saris floated through narrow alleys in which pigs and dogs, slick with filth, rooted through open sewers and piles of garbage.  Generosity and kindness greeted us in family-run guesthouses, outside of which a mob of children pinched, pulled and mobbed my companions.  My ethics were challenged, my senses reeled.

India smells of the straw and mulch of the barnyard, of fusty animals and human sweat.  It smells of frangipani, tuberose and sandalwood, of urine and feces and rotting garbage, of roses and burning incense.  It reeks of lung-choking kerosene fumes, fragrant chai, nose-tingling spices and sticky, syrup-drenched sweets baking in the hot afternoon sun.

After this first month, I could wave away the beggars without a wrenched heart.  I could expertly dodge frenetic bumper-to-bumper traffic and steaming piles of offal.  I could accept cold showers – or none at all –hot bone-jarring buses impossibly crammed with people and bundles of all shapes and sizes…some alive.  India’s hard edges had softened and blended into the complex, colourful backdrop of daily life and in the adventures that had brought me to this frenetic, pink city…to this man, in this small room.

Jaipur was founded by Maharaja Jai Singh II, a thoughtful and visionary leader with a love of the sciences, particularly math and astronomy.  He planned his city on a grid of nine squares based on an ancient Hindu map of the universe, with the Royal Palace at its center, underground aqua ducts and an observatory to study the cosmos.  He invited gifted artisans, craftsmen and traders from throughout Asia to settle in his new capital and created special areas for jewelers, potters, textile workers and weavers.  Today, Jaipur is home to over 100,000 jewelry merchants, countless more traders and dealers, and is unsurpassed in its production, quality and quantity of gemstone beads.

The promised introduction through our friend J.P. Sharma was a rare opportunity, particularly as I was a small player, a buyer of a few strands of pearls, of this and that semi-precious stone.  No diamonds, emeralds or rubies on my shopping list.  I felt butterfly wings of nervousness brush my insides.  This can’t be right, I thought…this shabby room, this slight man sitting on a flowered cotton mat in front of me.  The only other furnishing in the room was a black steel filing cabinet, a low single bed covered with a sheet, a battered credenza cluttered with scraps and paper, a dirty ashtray, and an oversized calculator.  A single ceiling fan lazily swept the air around us.

“Namaste,” I croaked, pressing my palms together in the traditional, prayer-like greeting.  Mr. Lal nodded and gestured to a place beside him where I sat, folding skirted legs under me.  J.P. spoke, introducing my friend and I, explaining that I had journeyed from Canada to visit Jaipur and to buy stones.  I offered him my business card, smiled and told him about Vancouver, my small jewelry business, the stones in which I was interested.  He nodded.  Silence fell over the room, bringing my attention to the muffled sounds of traffic and discordant car horns rising from the street below us, and the shuk-shuk of the fan above our heads.

A woman in a lemon yellow sari appeared as if from nowhere holding a plastic bag, which she handed to our host.  He lifted a small, brown leather envelope from its depths and rifled through its contents.  A square of light brown paper was selected, unfolded and placed in front of me.  In its folds glittered a deep green oblong of faceted emerald, an inch long.  My stomach sunk a little.  Perhaps he had misunderstood, perhaps there was an expectation that I couldn’t meet.

“How beautiful,” I murmured, holding it gingerly to the light turning it this way and that to marvel at the brilliant flashes of light caught on each faceted edge. 

I found myself telling him how much I loved large, rough and loosely polished stones, how they spoke more of the mystery and wonder of their existence, and of the moment of their discovery in dark recesses of the earth.  Beautiful promises waiting for light.

He nodded.

“You want to see rubies?” he asked in a thick accent, the first English he had spoken.

“Yes, please,” I responded weakly.  This wasn’t going well.

He gestured to the woman in yellow who opened a drawer in the filing cabinet and produced a white canvas bag, about the size of a five-pound bag of onions.  He untied the dirty string around the top and upended it, tipping out its dull red, chunky contents.

Rough, raw rubies, dusty from the African earth from which they were pried.  Chips and chunks and pieces as big as my fist.  My heart skipped a beat.

“You want to see emeralds?” he asked, a grin cracking his face.

“Yes, please!” I grinned back.  Now, we were getting somewhere!

From another canvas bag tumbled muddy green stones, light and dark, in all sizes and shapes.  2,500 rupees per kilo, in this form; tens of thousands, when cut and polished.  Jaipur is renowned for its emeralds, rubies and sapphires.  And no-one will say how much business is done, how much this Johari market gem trade generates.

Mr. Lal placed a smooth, misshapen, clay-coloured rock the size of my palm in front of me.  Puzzled, I turned it over in my hand, and was rewarded with a deep blue iridescent fire glowing from a chipped edge.  Black opal…glorious!

He asked for the telephone, spoke rapidly in Hindi, then hung up.

“You wait,” he instructs.

A silver tray of assorted sweet and savoury snacks appeared, with delicate blue and white fine bone china cups of steaming, fragrant chai.  We adjusted cramped legs.  Sweat pooled in the crook of our folded knees.  The room grew even warmer.

Twenty minutes later, a man entered the room, breathless from the stair climb, carrying more plastic bags.  Then another man, and another, and another and another.  Over the next few hours, all I had to do was mention a stone and it appeared, spilled out of nondescript paper and plastic bags onto the mat, all sizes and shapes and colours.

These were his colleagues, summoned by simple request, to honour a friend’s guest.  The true business of this priceless industry isn’t conducted in the thousands of city storefronts full of glittering glass cases, carefully arranged displays and strategic lighting.  Its heart beats in small, unassuming rooms, gently fueled by men sitting on the floor, sipping cups of sweet chai, with a relaxed patience and grace that belie a deep knowledge and sharp acumen.  This is a business built on trusted connections, on traditions reaching back generations, of family dealings and favours.  A nod, a telephone call, a request.

Time passed and I was lost on the soft cotton island.  For the first time since arriving, I was not a stranger.  I felt completely connected to this mysterious culture, completely absorbed in this interaction made possible by a common interest and the gracious hospitality of my host.   

This was India.  In that moment, in that room, I was definitely in the right place.