Ordering a piece to your own design
From a photo or sketch to a finished piece in six to twelve weeks: the steps, the costs and the fittings.
Johari Bazaar for first-time visitors
How the jewellers’ street is laid out, when to come and what to ask in any shop you enter.
Johari Bazaar runs south from Badi Chaupar to Sanganeri Gate, and has been Jaipur’s jewellers’ street for nearly three hundred years. For a first-time visitor it can feel overwhelming. A few pointers help.
The main road holds the larger showrooms, with glass fronts and pink-painted arches. The narrow lanes branching off it, like Haldiyon ka Rasta where our karkhana is, hold the workshops: setters, polishers, enamellers and stone dealers. Many families, ours included, sell in the front and make in the back or upstairs. Gopalji ka Rasta, across the road, is where the coloured gemstone traders sit.
Come in the late morning. Shops open around 11 am, and between then and 1 pm the bazaar is calmer and the light in the showrooms is good. Afternoons are hot from April to June, and evenings in October and November are crowded with festival shoppers.
In any shop, ask four things: the gold purity and weight, the stone weight, the making charge and the exchange terms. A good jeweller writes all four on the bill. Ask whether a piece has polki, which are uncut diamonds, or glass set in kundan; both are honest, but they are priced very differently. Take your time. Have chai, see two or three shops and come back. If you visit us, ask to go upstairs and watch the setters at work. It is the best way to understand what you are buying.
