Diamonds

My dad was a diamond factory worker in Gujarat prior to immigrating to the US. In his early days he couldn't afford a flat, so he slept on streets and between factory machines.

Most people don’t know my dad was a diamond factory worker for almost 14 years before immigrating to the United States. He brought $20 with him to the United States, leaving most of his hard earned money behind in his village. Huddled in an overnight bus at 16, my father had left his small village to work in the diamond industry, which was booming at the time and many young men like him were leaving their villages to find work. 

He first arrived at Visnagar, Gujarat, a town about 65 kilometers northwest of the Mehsana district in Gujarat. He, along with the other workers who could not afford to rent a room were allowed by the factory owner to sleep on the floor between the machines. In the morning, as the machines hummed awake, the men also rose and began working. The work was long, tedious, and required the workers to bend over one diamond for hours at a time. For each diamond cut and polished, they only received three or four rupees (less than 1 US cent).  

After a few months of sleeping on the floors, my father had enough money to rent a room with five other young men, also from Sampad. The room consisted of one kerosene stove and their few belongings which included a pair or two of clothing. 

Despite his meager pay and simple living situation, my father sent money home for his brothers’ educations. At the time, one of his oldest brothers had finished college and the other three were enrolled. 

The raw diamonds originated from one of the largest major diamond markets, Antwerp, Belgium. About ninety percent of uncut diamonds and fifty percent of all polished stones were traded in Antwerp alone. From Antwerp, the diamonds were exported to Indian diamond centers in Bombay, Ahmedabad, and Surat via anagadias, the Gujarati word for a courier who is trustworthy and carries valuables.

To this day, Antwerp is still one of the largest diamond hubs with billion dollar global enterprises owned by mostly Gujaratis. It is home to a community of 400 successful Indian diamond families, most of which are from a town in Gujarat called Palanpur.

80% of the world’s diamonds are still processed in India with factories still holding their base in Surat. Let me say that again just in case it didn’t sound crazy to you the first time: India’s 4.5-billion-dollar industry of stone-cutting is the origin of 80% of the diamonds sold around the world. India’s advantage for the market was (and is) in large part due to the availability of cheap, skilled labor like my father’s. After the diamonds were polished and cut, they were sent back to Antwerp where they were exported to commercial centers around the world.

While the diamond business was lucrative, not many made it. When he found his job in the diamond business, my father needed to receive training on how to cut diamonds, but first he had to pay the factory an upfront fee of 500 rupees (equivalent to 7-8 USD), which at the time was quite hefty.

When he arrived he was naive to the dishonesty that allowed many in the industry to make it. Living away from home was a wake up call for my dad. Once while living in Surat, a friend asked my dad to accompany him to pick up some money. When he arrived at the meeting location with his friend, he realized it was not a friendly money pick up. It was an illegal trade with thugs who were carrying guns.

Many of the young men also had to lie and cheat to make more money and move up in the industry. Even those related to him made more money than my father by using simple tricks. Albeit illegal, they exchanged a diamond they had been working on with one of a lesser value. My father knew it was wrong and although he was very poor, he knew there would be a way to make an honest living without stealing, lying, or cheating. He knew by learning the trade he’d be able to progress in business, but also knew this would never happen by staying a laborer. His goal had always been to own his own business and knew the only way to make more money was to start his own enterprise.

Eventually he made his way from Visnagar to Surat, one of the world’s largest diamond hubs where many factories still stand today. He stayed there for a decade as a diamond laborer before going to Bombay, one of the largest ports for exporting polished diamonds.

My mom eventually joined him. They lived in a chaali, a small alley that was once considered the slums of Bombay. When talking about her experiences in Bombay, my mom sometimes told me about the sandaas, or hole in the ground, at the end of the chaali. It was the only one for the dozens or so homes and if you went, you had to bring your own bucket of water with you. It smelled bad, had flies, and was infested with other bugs and rodents.

In 2016, I visited the area they once lived. Until recently, Jyosana Aunty lived in Ganeshnagar, the part of Bombay that my parents lived in, but now she lives in a flat with her son and husband. 

I gave Jyosana Aunty a call when I reached India and she was happy to hear from me. It took me a day longer to get there because of India’s cash shortage, as I had landed in India with two hundred rupees on the very same day as Narendra Modi’s 2016 demonetization crack down had just begun. 

I was staying with a friend across the city, so I took the busy train about 45 minutes to reach the station closest to where they lived. It was my first time taking the train in Bombay without a friend, so I was worried I was going to miss the stop or forget where to transfer trains.

Unfamiliar with the city and where I was going, I asked a rickshaw driver where their flat complex was. He pointed me into the direction of the very flat we were standing in front of. As I approached the building, I saw a woman looking out at me from the balcony of one of the floors above. 

The door opened as I walked up the stairs, and the same woman from the balcony opened the door and greeted me, half smiling as she recognized who I was. She had oil in her hair which was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a simple blue sari with small flowers on it that was wrapped around her small frame. She was in her late 50’s, about the same age as my mother and had familiar, kind eyes. I could feel her happiness as she looked at me and told me I looked like my mother and that I had grown so much. 

It had been more than two decades since she last saw me. I was just a baby when my mother had brought me and my sisters there, promising to come back again soon. My mother kept in touch with her old friend, as she did with many others, but hadn’t been able to see her in so many years. 

For my mother, there was always a yearning to go back, but like many immigrants, life began moving and other priorities took hold. Now, almost 22 years later, I was back, but this time alone and I wanted to know more about who my parents were before I was born and how they lived, beyond the familiar life I knew we had in the United States. 

Sometimes as a child and even as an adult, I’d imagine my parents as a random Indian aunty and uncle. I’d ask myself, “What if I just walked into the room and had never seen them before? What would I think?”. I began having these thoughts as I grew older, but more frequently as I’d spend months at a time living in India. I wanted to see them as their own separate people, independent of my sisters and I. 

As I walked into the one bedroom flat, I looked to the right and saw a man sitting on one of the cots. He smiled at me, also recognizing who I was. My mother had told me that her friend’s husband had a stroke many years earlier, leaving him paralyzed from one side, unable to properly walk, hear, or speak. He recognized me as I walked in the door and kneeled to say ‘Jay Shree Krishna’. 

Within 10 minutes of my arrival, she told me my parents always helped someone if they were in need. Usually, while interviewing and asking for stories from relatives or elders from my family’s villages, I asked for questions up front, but Jyosana Masi began telling me exactly what I had been thinking to ask. She continued to tell me that they gave their time, emotions, and love. 

As she spoke in Gujarati, I was reminded of how many Gujaratis had come to settle in Maharashtra, but still, even after two or three generations, continued to live a Gujarati lifestyle. 

1960 was the official divide and recognition of Gujarat and Maharashtra as separate states, but Gujaratis continued to settle in the state for business, decades after. As a child, my father heard of riots breaking out between Gujaratis and Maharashtrians as the Mahagujarat movement took hold. It was a political movement demanding the creation of the state of Gujarat for Gujarati-speaking people from what was the combined bilingual Bombay state of India. The animosity continued for years beyond. Throughout my father’s stay in Mumbai, more riots broke out between Gujaratis and Marathis as more Gujaratis began to take over businesses. Their slogan was Hum chi Mumbai, Mumbai is ours. 

While telling me stories about Mumbai, he often said, at the time, that it was a post-colonial structure. The laws were in place to protect the British and the affluent, not the average citizen. There was no law and order and the gap between Marathis and Gujaratis spread wider. Marathi gangs and the mafia often showed up at my father’s factory demanding the owner give them monthly installments of 500 rupees. If the owner did not do so, the gangs threatened to destroy the factories.  

Jyosana Masi continued telling me, “Your mother tells me that you come here to work in India. That you want to give…you parents were always doing something for others…the same goon, (characteristic) has also come within you”.  She said my parents always helped others even when they had little to give.

A lump formed in the back of my throat. I was proud to know I was like them, but I know my parents hadn’t changed much and they still did the same for others. There was also a familiarity, about knowing who my parents were before my sisters and I were born. It was a glimpse into a different time, one that I could try to understand, but never would. 

A couple of minutes later she called her son to make sure he would be coming home early from work. She also called her daughter, who lived far away and was married with children. As the minutes passed, I could see that she had anxiously and enthusiastically been waiting for my arrival. I later realized that my mom and her were close friends, and she hadn’t had a friendship as close to anyone as the one she had with my mom. It was abnormal for me to imagine as my mom also hadn’t kept many close friends as she had in India before we were born because my parents had always been so busy working. 

She brought out old pictures, most of which I had never seen before. In one of the albums were solo pictures of my parents. Worn out over the decades, they weren’t in pristine condition, but I could see my parents in their younger years. In one of the photos, my mother was laughing at something, looking out into the distance. I asked my mother’s friend if I could take the photo, but she seemed to not like the question. It was obvious she had valued their friendship and that time of her life. Sensing her overprotectiveness of it, I took a picture of the photos and slipped them back into the album, continuing to look at the other photos. 

To earn a living since her husband could no longer work, Jyosana Aunty had been tutoring children after school for many years. The day of my visit, she had to tutor some children and asked me if it was okay if I sat for a little bit. I asked her if we could go to Ganeshnagar to see where they had once lived. We made a plan to go after her tutoring session.

We walked outside and crossed the road, still buzzing with afternoon activity. We walked alongside cars, rickshaws and vegetable vendors along the busy street. It took us about fifteen minutes to reach a road that had small alleys left and right, buzzing with daily activity as mothers washed clothes and children ran along the street playing. 

As we weaved in and out of alleyways, she recounted my father’s last year in Mumbai. He had put money down to enter into a partnership with Ishwarbhai, a Ravari Rajasthani man, for a small diamond cutting business. However, my father received a visa call from his elder brother, Devkaran who was in the United States on a pharmacy student visa. My father eventually got the money back and his sister’s husband, Gopal took his place.

We arrived at a chaali and walked to the end of it. Most people who had been living there 30 years prior had long since moved to other parts of the city or to smaller flats nearby. The new occupants wondered who I was, and my mother’s friend, being one of the most recently to move away, introduced me. Some vaguely knew of my parents while others, who had come much later, had no idea who they were. 

On the left side, at the end of the alley, a door to one person’s home was open much like many of the others. It was customary to keep your door open during the day, as most homes and apartment buildings were places of social interactions. I peered into the home where one light dimly lit the small room where the people living there cooked, slept, and ate. My mother’s friend pointed to the door across the alley and said that is where my parents used to live. The door was closed and locked as the occupants must have gone out for the day. 

I took a few pictures for memory, but spent more time taking in the sights and sounds. I could see a large temple towering behind the alleyway. A new temple, they told me, to honor Lord Shiva. I looked down the alleyway from the end where the communal bathroom was to see clothes pinned to lines and women peering out of their homes. I listened to the chattering close by and the honking of rickshaws in the distance. 

As we walked out, my mother’s friend told me that my mother and her had been closest to another friend, Umthiben, the wife of Ishwarbhai, the man who my dad was in the process of setting a business partnership with before he left Mumbai to immigrate to the United States. 

After my parents left Mumbai, Ishwarbhai continued with the business and ended up becoming a wealthy merchant. While they were living in a slum alleyway before, over time they began moving up the socioeconomic ladder. They now live in one of the most affluent flat complexes nearby. After being blessed with their newfound socioeconomic status, Jyosana aunty said Umthiben stopped communicating with them. There was a pause as I observed a sadness in her eyes. 

My mom considered herself lucky as she had so many of her old friends or the distant family members she grew up in, still living in poor conditions in the villages or nearby towns or cities, still struggling to make ends meet.

As we walked back to Jyosana Aunty’s home, we walked mostly in silence except for the few times she told me about her husband’s stroke and his inability to work. I was struck with her rawness and honesty, the reality of life that I had been so sheltered from in my middle class suburban upbringing. These were the stories us as first-generation children were often shielded from. 

When we arrived at their flat, their son had come home. He was just a couple of years older than me and had been working in an office as an accountant. I learned that in hopes of being able to find a suitable wife for him, his parents had moved to this flat. A girl’s parents would not choose to have their daughter marry into a family that was poor. The reason to move was to elevate their status.

Jyosana aunty went into the kitchen and began preparing dinner. I told her I would need to leave before it got too dark as I was unfamiliar with the train system. She told me not to worry, her son would drop me off the whole way if necessary. I resisted but knew there was no point. The matter was settled. 

She made bhajya, nuggets made of flour, spices, and greens as well as two types of fresh chutney, both sweet and spicy. I told her not to make too much food and she said my mother had said the same thing on the phone earlier that day. Mom, knowing I was coming, called her to tell her to not go through so much trouble. Although they kept in touch every now and then, she was happy to talk to mom after such a long time. She ended up making what I thought was a decent portion, but for them I also knew it was more than they could usually afford. 

I felt uncomfortable with her hospitality and generosity but felt it to be normal as I had been accustomed to this hospitality my entire life. It was normal, the way of our culture, to be this warm and welcoming. However, there was another emotion of empathy and compassion for this woman. I knew our time was coming to an end and knew how much it had meant to her that I came to her home, even without my mother being present. 

After dinner, we went to their other friend’s home. We walked through the gates, past the apartment watchman, and up the elevator to the top of the high rise. As we approached the apartment, a woman, named Umthiben, with a long black Rajasthani dress opened the door. 

Like the herders of the village who came from the desert, she wore a flowing black skirt, black blouse, and black cloth draped around her body. She was a large woman, who bellowed when she saw me walk through the door. She gave Jyosana aunty and I water and complained that my mom never called anymore. She asked Jyosana aunty a few questions about her life, but did mention they never talked anymore. “It seems you’ve gotten busy”, said Jyosana aunty. My mom’s friend said her husband was away on business and their kids were staying in the hostel for high school. I looked around the room - it was empty and barely signaled to a wealthy diamond merchant family. We sat on a bare cot in a room that had just one side table with a TV on top of it. The remotes were covered in plastic and besides that, there wasn’t much in the apartment. Although they’d been living there for years, it looked like they just moved in. 

We left after less than thirty minutes as there wasn’t much we had to say to each other. Jyosana aunty talked about how they barely talked after her husband began to make more money. The rise in socioeconomic status seemed apparent and often gave people a sense of authority, as if they had moved on. 

This is something I had never experienced as an Indian from America. I seldom dressed like an American - always wearing traditional Indian clothes with little jewelry. I spoke fluent Gujarati which often sounded like it was from the village as it was a dialect that my mom taught to my sisters and I, a dialect that was still present decades ago when she left India. However, people I visited knew I was from America and I could tell, automatically, I was put on a pedestal and treated differently. I had never faced inequality or a disadvantage because of who I am or where I come from. While growing up, my parents had been respected members of our community, and I was known as their daughter. On my visits to India, I was seen as the girl from America, and was always welcomed with open arms and warmth. My privilege followed me wherever I went.

After leaving the masi’s home, Jyosana aunty and I said our goodbyes on the street and her son took me to the train station. I asked him about his dreams and aspirations. He told me he was getting ready to take another accounting exam which would hopefully help him further his education and get a promotion in his job. Most of our train ride was filled with silence until the next stop where I needed to change trains to get back to my friend’s home. I rode back on the second train alone which was much emptier than it had been when I went earlier. Being in that empty train car with just a couple of other passengers felt eerie, as I had gotten so accustomed to the Bombay chaos in the few short days I was there.

The rush hour traffic had died down and most people were at home with their families. I walked to where I thought was the wrong way, down a silent street with some cars parked on the side and finally found an intersection which took me all the way back to my friend’s home.