Treasure beyond measure

Indian hand-made jewellery is a rage in the global market, especially
with connoisseurs, says Homai Sagar

STEP outside the modern world of machine-made jewellery and experience unique, hand-made items. Many fine jewellery stores have a special section where you can actually have unique hand-made pieces just for your individual desires.

These pieces are treasures that come from the hands of artisans who feel and love their craft. They design the piece from gold or silver and create it as a hand-made treasure, unique to the person who will wear it. These hand-made pieces of jewellery will often take much longer to produce than commercially-made jewellery.

Indian hand-made jewellery is a rage in the global market, especially with connoisseurs who prefer handcrafted treasures to their machine-made counterparts. Inspired by nature, fuelled by beauty and belief, Indian handcrafted jewellery is an eternal process of artistic imagination and fine craftsmanship that has been developed throughout history. Even today jewellery is used by different tribal societies. Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro and other sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation have unearthed a wealth of hand-made ornaments. Both men and women of the time wore jewellery made of gold, silver, copper, ivory, precious and semi-precious stones.

A major chunk of jewellery in the country is still made by independent craftsmen. Big and feudal families used to have their personal jewellers, who would entertain their demand. These jewellers were expected to design ornaments, keeping in mind the individual needs and desires of customers.

A new trend of full-fledged jewellers has come up. The traditional patterns are still followed in rural areas. In case of occasions such as weddings, jewellery is often specially designed to match perfectly with the wedding outfit. The major USP of hand-made jewellery items is that they are really aesthetic and hold a lot of appeal. Mastery of craftsmen shines through the jewels in the form of myriad designs.

Traditionally, Indian goldsmiths are usually men and are referred to by a variety of names depending on the region — sonar, swarnakara, panchallar, or thattan. In the Vedic period, goldsmiths had a much higher standing than most other artisans, perhaps because they worked with a precious metal. The goldsmiths had royal patrons. Historical records show that Indian jewellers mastered quite early the various skills required to make fine jewellery-mixing alloys, moulding, drawing fine wires, setting stones, inlay work, relief, drawing gold and silver into thin wires, plating and gilding. The goldsmith may perform all the processes involved in producing a finished piece. In cities, the different operations are undertaken by separate people. The goldsmith prepares the skeletal framework, the chatera engraves, the kundansaaz or jaria sets the stones, while the meenasaaz enamels it.

Although not as well-finished as machine-made jewellery, hand-made jewellery is extremely valued and priced, using artwork and proficiency. Hand-made jewellery carries a specific charm and elegance to it and, therefore, would make for just the best gift for somebody special.

But machine-produced jewellery is usually trendy and provides an attractive variety of styles. Repairing machine-made jewellery is hard and usually leaves ugly scars only to leave your product worthless. Finishes and polishes that make this jewellery attractive are truly a limitation when it has to be repaired. The polish melts away effortlessly and harms the articles. Recycling the metals then is almost not possible and cannot be regarded as an investment. But as almost all machine-made jewellery is hallmarked as to its`A0purity, it is a distinct advantage.

Hand-made jewellery can be purchased and will effortlessly be repaired whenever essential, usually with minimum effort. The metals and stones could be recycled or rearranged into a new design, ltogether at considerably decreased costs. Beautiful, genuine and specifically handcrafted trendy jewellery could be produced, utilising almost all metals and gemstone combinations. — MF

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