Emerald City: The Birth and Evolution of an Indian Gemstone Industry

Chapter 4: Doing Business

4 DOING BUSINESS As is true of most things in life, the manufacturing of gemstones can be done well or badly. In Jaipur, there was a time—in the hey‑ day of big profit margins—when doing it badly was doing it well enough. This is no longer true. When done well, it is a complex, absorbing, and challenging undertaking that unites mineralogy, busi‑ ness strategy, bargaining skills, aesthetics, and the ability to manage human relationships. It draws upon an individual’s best qualities of intelligence, judgment, patience, and ability to defer gratification. In the ownership class of Jaipur’s gemstone business, most enter the business because of family tradition. Of those who do, some develop the highest levels of skill and a genuine passion for the business. Others do not, and they often flounder. There are no guarantees of success. This chapter explains some of the essentials of how this busi‑ ness is actually conducted. These basics have largely remained the same through the post‑war period, but I have noted some important changes as well. If some of what follows seems overly detailed, I would ask readers to bear in mind that this book is an account of a business, and that to understand the business we must know some‑ thing of the manufacturing techniques and trading practices that are its very fiber. The chapter is organized around five topics: how gems are cut, how deals are made, the role of the broker, black money, and the settling of disputes. The chapter ends with a preliminary comparison between the Jaipur gemstone industry and the diamond industry of New York City. 85 86 Emerald City CUTTING GEMSTONES In the manufacture of colored gemstones—given the central role of the emerald in this book, emeralds will be our example—everything depends on the rough. Emerald rough is quite unprepossessing in appearance; it looks like nothing but greenish gravel. But arguably the most important decision a manufacturer makes in the entire produc‑ tion process is how much he is willing to pay for it. This naturally depends in part on the quality of the final product the rough will support. The highest quality rough will become faceted gems; lower qualities yield cabochons and beads. A key element in such calcula‑ tions is the amount of wastage by weight that will be lost in the manufacturing process. The rough is first washed with detergent and then oiled, typi‑ cally with edible oil. Then comes the first of the many sortings that will repeatedly occur over the course of the manufacturing sequence. In fact, one could argue that sorting is the true core of the manufactur‑ ing process, and one of the most important ways value is added to gemstones. This is a point to which we return in the next chapter. The owner (or possibly his apprentices), first separates the rough stones by size utilizing special metal sifters. Typically the rough is then sorted into three streams: waste, stones that can be moved directly to the preshaping phase, and stones that require slicing before being pre‑ shaped. The waste is not necessary thrown away, because it might prove profitable to work later on. It can be saved or sold to some‑ one willing to work with it. I know of at least one firm nowadays producing mainly emerald beads from waste rough accumulated in years past. Discarded rough can also be used in the manufacture of Ayurvedic medicines. After sorting, those stones that cannot be sent directly to the preshaping process must be sliced into more workable pieces, and they must first be marked where the slice should be. This operation requires a great deal of skill because the cut must be positioned in a way that yields the maximum value of final product. It cannot be emphasized enough that the highest level of gemstone judgment is required to do this well. The manufacturer must have the ability to peer into a stone’s future, for this is the point at which a decision must be made about what the final product will be. It also requires real courage when large sums of money are at stake. One of my informants told me of how, when he was still relatively new in the business, he had taken a very valuable piece of emerald rough to a highly reputed manufacturer for advice on where to make the first 87 Doing Business...