 Wari jai mukhi nivu vatsa vela It's believed that all classical forms are derived from the dance of Shiva who is the dancer amongst dancers and when we describe his dance it is believed that the sun and the moon were his adornment when he danced If you see every temple be it Shiva, Devi or Krishna or Vishnu right from the crown to the beautiful adornment on the feet everything is beautiful temple jewellery of course it's pure rubies and precious gems and diamonds that we use just taking off from there the dancer who used to offer her dance in the temple Devadasis used to perform in the temple they used to adorn themselves as well with the temple jewellery and that's where I think the connection was because the temple it's known as the temple dance it used to be performed in the temples and the dancers had to look spectacular for the Lord it was not for ordinary mortals that they got dressed they got dressed with the best jewellery and the best kind of fabrics to actually to actually offer their art form to the Lord Today in a contemporary context as a symbol of that great connect we use the sun and the moon on our part of the jewellery to show the connection between Shiva and the dance and we have beautiful head gear and earrings and necklace and beautiful bangles and rings which adorn the dancer and of course beautiful belt that enhances the waist of the dancer and all this is actually heightens the experience of the dance because if you see the dance minus all the jewellery and the beautiful aharya it will not have the same effect as you see bedecked dancer on stage saying what she has to say adorn or ornament is an important constituent of the material culture of any society in the Indian context the earliest depiction is seen from pre-indistimes in the indians valley civilization you have the famous dancing girl with profusion of bangles and a simple necklace very important are the terracotta beads and even more significant the etched carnelian beads these are long red tubular beads which are quite famous of the Indus valley and they were even exported outside a very important textual source is a natishasra bharatmani in fact that gives great details of a variety of ornaments as for example you have lotus shaped earrings you have ivory earrings shaped like leaves which can be seen even in the 7th century AD in the Mauritius and Cushan sculptures you see figurines wearing a single stranded necklace or double 3, 5 like duladi, tiladi or pachaladi in Hindi and they are clasped together by rectangular clasp perhaps of gold jewelry had reached its zenith by the Gupta period between the 4th to 6th century AD in the Ajanta caves cave 1 we have the famous painting of Bodhisattva Padma Pani with wearing an ekavali an ekavali is a single string pearl necklace with the central bead of Saffa purest form of metal so when we buy that it is a connotation that we are bringing purity into our home and that purity is somewhere going to manifest in our action and thought SSEF that gone for certification now for the round gradation we had two options we made mocks for them one is either with the pink diamonds from moving from rubies to pinks to white or we do complete rounds so once we get a go ahead on that we can go ahead with ordering the diamonds which one would you prefer pink diamonds pink diamonds when people look at Indian jewelry they have generally the connotation is of heritage royal jewelry what we are doing is to have to put India on a world map where it's more of with a lot of appeal so it can't it's not only worn for very traditional Indian functions it will be worn by Indians, Chinese, Swiss, Germans the sensibility is very international the finest craftsmanship the highest quality diamonds the innovations which are there we have centuries of tradition we I think we had jewelry before probably any other country did and appreciation for that so we have sold through Christie's and Sotheby's we have sold a necklace for 8 million dollars so today 8 million is 55 crores yes we have sold another necklace a Golconda Lotus necklace it was also sold for around 25 crores and one was sold in Christie's one was sold in Sotheby's every diamond in the necklace was D color which is the finest every stone in the necklace was either internally flawless or flawless additionally every stone was type 2A which is the purest diamond that can be had so a necklace like this had never been done before in history and it was an exceptional collection of stones that took a long time to put together the graduation was beautiful the execution was beautiful it was one-of-a-kind piece that would be extremely extremely difficult to duplicate In the year 1966, the German Junior E-Export Promotion Council was established under the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India since then we have never looked back we are going front and front and ahead and ahead I'll tell you in 66 the total export from the country was 10 million dollars which is approximately 40 billion dollars today we were a small player in diamond manufacturing worldwide but over these three to four decades India became one of the largest manufacturer of polished diamonds today we roughly control about over 65% in terms of value of word production of diamonds and about more than 88 to 90% in terms of volume of the diamond business principally what globalization did was allowed India to play in a global market we've had very restricted policies in terms of import as well as export by opening those policies Indian manufactured jewelry is now available to the rest of the world where import duties are reduced and are encouraged out of India I think that has played a very big role for us to become international players from just national players that we were about 20 years ago the primary job is to liazo between government and the industry so we interact and liazo between government and the industry to tailor make suitably exempt policy we also promote the budding designers since last couple of years we have been doing India international jewelry week wherein we invite about 50 international media and journalists and international buyers they come and see and we show them that made in India is not a copy of Versace it's not a copy of anybody else we know we have our originality and we produce it to them from government jewelry industry of India counseling is always there to build a bridge of friendship much more than people no problem we said okay okay how much? it's a very complex piece India to us is really the most important manufacturing center and that relationship is well in place over the years our number of our suppliers our big suppliers are based here the manufacturers important to us and of course everybody knows 90% of the diamonds in the world are cut and polished here and that's the most critical aspect for us we have a diamond sourcing division of our company but in terms of jewelry manufacturing we're not manufacturers we are retailers and we prefer to have the experts do the manufacturing for us they're here I mean the largest primary color gemstone miner in the world we sell more in India so our rough goes from the auction gets exported to India to the companies that have won and then they cut and polish the stones in Jaipur and they come to all over India and all over the world actually we're looking for distributors over here that had the capacity capability to push our brand also in the local market like we do in US, like we do in Russia, like we do in China that's what the future I believe is India by having these shows you bring different areas together you've got Antwerp here, you've got Thailand, you've got people here from all over so it's a great platform for different sectors to meet I've been in the company about 32 years and I remember when New York City was the big show twice a year in January and then in the summer JCK came about in Las Vegas 20 years ago and that was revolutionary at that time and I've heard about the growth here at IIJS and it's amazing to me my first time last year I felt like I was in Las Vegas everything's running very smoothly yet to see a day when any export or import parcels for more than 24 hours over here is never held up unless there's some dispute on the valuation otherwise as far as normal routine is concerned all parcels live within 4 or 5 hours of display it's coming into this place, it's that efficient I don't think another customer house like this exists anywhere else in India to be a member of the World Federation of Diamond Boosters you need to have a trading hall so this is a trading hall mainly for international buyers so when an international buyer from another boost comes to India and he doesn't know any of the people selling diamonds or wanting to buy diamonds then he gets a letter from his boost saying that he's a member in good standing based on that we give him entry to this trading hall and all his demands will be put up on the website electronically and people will come and show goods over here they will negotiate the prices, determine the prices he will then get an invoice made out walk over to customs and export the goods of course the payment since the banks are also here money is first transferred and export takes place immediately SEZ is a new concept which help emphasizing a point that we should be exporting goods and not the taxes SEZ basically ensure that all the input which comes to the factory for production is free from any tax and apparently it reduces the transaction cost working capital cost and actually it helps to export the product in a very efficient and competitive way after SEZ was introduced number of very important steps have taken place one it allows us duty free imports which means an industrialist is ready to put money into setting up an industry without the fear of having the burden of having to pay large amount of duty on imports gold also is imported now freely into the country with no duty as long as it's being exported so the zones don't have that as a problem customs is located within a bonded area so we do not have to travel to the city stand in line for our exports to go out there are large custom facilities within the zone itself that allows us to export Subash, don't forget tonight it's very important that 1030 the list, the last 15 or 16 total 11,000 in the special economic zone one big advantage there all exports and imports are regulated no import can take place, export can take place without the permission of the development commissioner so banks knows very well what's happening around with the working capital given to them whether it's being used or misused this is a one-time order to Walmart in US 13,000, 14,000 pieces, individual pieces we are shipping today so one of the biggest customers and one of the biggest shipments now the season starts every week we're going to have that much pieces to be shipped right now we have about 200,000 pieces to make every month confirm orders Tara Jewels is predominantly into manufacturing of fine jewelry by fine jewelry I mean jewelry in platinum, gold, silver precious metals using or studied with diamonds, colored stones and other precious stones our basic exports go to the United States Europe, Australia, Canada, South Africa so we literally export all over the world China is also an important, that whole sector of China is also an important market for us our major customers are companies like Signet Corporation which is the largest jeweler in the world Zale Corporation, largest jeweler in the United States Walmart Corporation, the largest retailer in the world Fushini which is the largest retailer in the South Africa Bevels, one of the largest retailers in Australia so we cater to the blue chip companies of the world 50 years ago it was the largest in Belgium later it was the largest in Israel and today in the whole world the most diamond cutting is in Surat 100 pieces of polishing in the world 92 making only in India in 1964 when I came to Surat there was only 200 diamond cutting workers in Surat more than 5 lakhs today only 6 crore was exported to India today more than 1 lakh crore our raw material is from the entire world direct supplier is also from DTC direct product from DBS direct product from Russia comes from BHP Canada and we take as much as we want from the market second is manufacturing which we polish raw material so we sell huge products in the whole world in more than 100 countries and our products come from the entire world and through internet our products are sold online too we insist that every diamond that is coming in should carry a certificate of authority we ensure that no unethically obtained diamond is finding its way into the country and we are very active in Kimberley certification if any worker has any problem first of all we take his medical insurance second thing is that if someone gets distracted then the company gives half a lakhs to someone the lunch here is free no charge there are 3,200 people in the building 4,000 capacity but the 3,200, 3,500 people every day they eat the company provides it no one takes any money and we also eat here I am originally farmer's son and farmer also I can do everything in the field I am studying only 7 Gujarat I am when I was 13 years old that time I come to Surat I told you that I was a 200-year-old worker then I worked in a 6-year-old factory and in 1970 I started a factory with 3 partners only with 2 workers today we have more than 5,000 workers and 5,000 crores of employees the most important part of my training was working with a firm in New York by the name of Carvin French which was founded in the late 1940s by a Swiss and French 2 partners it's still there, still in existence it remains an extremely high-level workshop clients included pretty much every major house every major jewelry house Harry Winston, Bulgari, Tiffany, Cartier Verdura, a lot of the larger diamond houses William Goldberg, Louis Glick, Asprey so I worked with them for 8 years after that I started my own business which I had for 12 years thank you I was at a crossroads in my business in the sense that the economy was shaky my lease was up I was going to have to build a new facility which I wasn't comfortable doing because I really felt I couldn't get a read on the economy and I was attracted to the prospect of building something like this and in many ways recreating the experience that I'd had at Carvin French where I could take the cumulative knowledge that I'd gained over the past 30 years plus and put it to use and create this you know, have the opportunity to create this and you know, it was a natural progression everything fell into place at the right time you know, it's quite unique for an American to come to India normally we think of it the other way around sending Indians to America for IT and he has probably over 50 years of experience in jewellery working with the finest houses he does a lot of the research and development to enable us to come up with the finest creations in the jewellery industry I would say is older than the city of Jaipur it actually started in Amir due to the patronage of the erstwhile royal family of Amir or the Maharajahs of Amir at the time of Akbar Mirza Raja Mansingh first brought this art of enabling on gold to Jaipur and he brought all the carriages or the craftsmen from Lahore this is not what we are asking it seems that our people's thoughts our ancestors they were well-known in Pakistan and that's how they taught their elders and that's how they taught their elders actually the royal family of Amir was an art from the time of the Maharajahs we only looked at it from that perspective and that's how it all started look at the work that is being done by the machine we used to have a Japanese team and they took us there but no one was able to cut the ultra-nets of the royal family this is what we should do we should be able to take care of the royal family we need to convert the gold we need to prepare the sheets we need to give them some heat and then the royal family will be ready this jewelry is basically a wedding jewelry the royal family of Amir but then in the last 20 years we have lots of designers coming in this field and they are designing lightweight jewelry also with this art to fulfill the demand of youngsters and also the international market we have introduced fusion jewelry which is a combination of traditional Kundan Meena combined with modern setting techniques for centuries Jaipur has been the biggest centre for the lapidary industry for the jewelry industry and it is just because of the royal patronage during the Amir period it was mostly garnet cutting and polishing and garnet was found near Kishangar not far from Jaipur and this emerald cutting came much later I believe and I feel so because of the expertise in cutting garnets some jewelers of Jaipur brought rough emeralds from Columbia and then this emerald cutting and polishing industry flourished in Jaipur ever since and that was I believe in late 19th century 90% of the emerald cuts in India and they are the biggest exporter of emeralds to the world even majority emeralds and a lot of semi-precious like an amethyst, blue topaz, zircon all kind of colour stones it comes, I mean they do cut in India nobody can beat the pricings and the quantity especially which they do it more than in Jaipur Jaipur is a hub of a colour stone we make some of our jewelry in here in India and some of the colour stone we cut it in Jaipur and all celebrities which work with them right now they wear those jewelry from India this year we had Pamela Anderson we have Holly Madison and we have all the celebrities wear the jewelry from India which is done in here and they know that this business was started by my forefathers during the time of Mughals our family has been associated for centuries with this trade well we are trying to maintain the old traditions and making jewelry using the traditional techniques traditional designs but making it more contemporary earlier a lot of stone cutting and polishing there were a lot of jewelers involved in that but there were very few manufacturing jewelers like us and in those days in my grandfather great grandfather days most of the clients were the Maharajas or the lords or the feudal families who could afford expensive jewelry and that has been continuing we manufacture everything by hand because we have the workers we have the craftsmen who are doing it and we don't make bulk pieces we make one of its kind pieces we are making jewelry also collecting jewelry going to different villages we travelled from Himachal Pradesh to Kerala looking after how people make jewelry so we wanted to know how, when, why people wear jewelry so we used to design kicking inspiration from old designs or combining old pieces and new pieces making something fantastic my customer who are basically either Thika artist or film artist or people who have knowledge about art when they can wear for a functional event and they don't find anyone else wearing such jewelry that's why people like Halle Berry or Luchi Lu or Megan Fox Drew Berrymore or Jennifer Lopez they don't say, you know they are corrective Gramrapali pieces because they were bold and beautiful so all my pieces which has international look, a universal appeal their soul is always very Indian years back we did not know the technology to create Hallmark compatible silver jewelry and hence the silver jewelry used to be going out of India as piece of metallic jewelry India's silver is going as silver jewelry as sterling silver and guaranteed and you examine it anywhere in the world and we stand the test of time This work can be done for 30 to 32 years 30 to 32 years of age and if it takes 5 years to train then someone from 16 to 15 years of age can learn this work and become a mystery and become a mystery and can work for 10 years and then they can stand up The offering from the jewelry division of Titan Company Limited which happens to be a metallic company and this industry which is among the oldest in India we bought transparency and operations trustworthiness and merchandise and the quality standards that the data is famous for Tanishki is one of the corporate company where we have a lot of latest technology machinery and facilities everything we have automated so the labour involvement is very less so thereby we are able to launch the product in a faster way and speed way which the competition cannot copy it and the global exchange is a very common phenomenon in India we again melt the gold in front of the customer in front of the customer in the store so we have our own service centre in the Tanish stores where a customer can actually bring his old gold and melt in front of him, test the purity and we give him the valuation there and then which again is a practice which is not transparent in the jewelry industry and the design like I said to you are very unique designs differentiated but still traditional space which gives the customer a sense of contemporariness a sense that is buying something from a Prata brand in the first place design that differentiated, transparent people are mobile now in India I can go and buy from Chandigarh exchange in Chinnai, buy in Chinnai go to Jammu as a matter of fact and I go to Gujarat and go to wherever and I have this same brand, same practice, same experience so that experience which is true brand experience is not available any other brand anymore I came across jewelry as creative source for myself I thought that I could involve a lot of women to bead and to train them to do this I started with just the local women around like the urban village around and I started training them and I started with like eight women in the first year who I trained who would take work from me and go home I would give them a deadline and then they would bring the goods back to me at a set deadline but they had the freedom of working at their own time I actually have a company with clothing but I want to get into jewelry because it's so beautiful here and I've just visited a stall and purchased some jewelry placed in order and I'm really looking forward to receiving it because well the jewelry that I just ordered I think is beautifully made and goes with my range my collection so I'm actually very excited about it and I love the colour, I love the colours and yeah I think the workmanship is beautiful I'm so excited to be here Quality is very important for us in Europe I think coming here is an amazing country for inspiration for getting the best prices for I mean there's just so many ideas and such creativity that genuinely it's one of the best places I've been to in my career. I'll be working with a supplier that you have faith in who can deliver a product that meets your standard but in general quite good experience with jewelry from India it's quite economical from a buyer's perspective and it's extremely attractive and I think there's, well I know there's a very big market for it all around the world but I'm quite specific about the design and the type of jewelry that I like for my company and for my brand so I spent quite a bit of time working through it with a supplier to get something that I'm happy with quite good success with jewelry from India Getting is very very ritualistic in nature you know so on a wedding day we come with a mindset that the bride has to look almost like goddess she has to be adorned with beauty, we adorn her with lot of gold jewelry so first and prime of I say we want her to look very beautiful that is a day from the mother's point of view where I'm giving away my daughter to another family so when I give away my daughter it is you know that is the right time when we detach our umbilical cord so it was very significant for me that she adorns a part of my jewelry so if you see her jewelry the jewelry that she was wearing was family jewelry right from the little set to the huge you know ancestral jewelry which is about 200 years old and which weighed almost half a kg that was a part of me being sent along with her that I'm speaking to the mother's point of view you know and I felt that I am not going to be alone there is a part of me which is going to be witnessing her journey in the life in terms of weddings and jewelry they go hand in hand I think in a country like ours in India you could go abroad and you have Christian weddings and women are very gently dressed delicately dressed there is a lot of ritual associated with every piece of jewelry why you wear something on the neck why you wear something on the nose and how it also associates you with a particular religion sometimes a big nose ring but when you're a person of an Islamic religion you wear something on the side the colours everything has a certain significance in the ancient Vedic system I don't know the details of them but I think that's how a woman associates because she wants to associate with the old prescribed rituals