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The ships, owned by the Parsi merchant princes, laden with opium and spices, sailed to China. They returned with silk and bamboos and South Sea pearls. The world’s most valuable natural pearls were near round or baroque. Silky silver or champagne in color, sometimes with deep golden tones. They soon adorned aristocratic necks from the first families — Petits, Jejeebhoys, Wadias and Camas. In family portraits, these pearls enhanced the effect of the purple Chinese gara, with its thick flowery hems. The penniless refugees from Persia had at last come into their own, and heirlooms were slowly being built.
Soon Burmese rubies became hot favorites with the Parsi rich. Even today, the most expensive gem per carat, the best of these rubies were ‘pigeon blood’ red in color and had a strong fluorescence. After the Great Mutiny of 1857 had been quelled and the British grip firmly established over India, nomadic groups from Burma were able to travel as far as Surat to sell these rubies. Wrapped unceremoniously in small pieces of muslin cloth, housewives in the dusty lanes of Navsari would haggle for a pair of larger rubies for making earrings, and half a dozen smaller ones, to be embedded in gold bangles to be worn at weddings and festive occasions. There were no certificates from gem councils and assurance labs; cheating was still absent from the world’s DNA. There were no discussions on cut, color and clarity. Eye contact between the purchaser and seller established trust and made way for repeated purchases over the years. Though, at times, spinel, another semiprecious red gemstone, would be mistaken for ruby.

 

 

 

 

 

Red was an auspicious color for the Parsis, like the red tilo (mark) on the forehead to signify married status and to conceal the third eye from unwanted male gaze. Upon widowhood, the ruby encrusted bracelet would be preserved for the daughter or daughter-in-law; a plain vanilla gemless, solitary gold bangle replacing it, until death. Belief in astrology was then all pervading. The planetary configuration in your horoscope determined whether you could wear a particular gem or not. The family jeweler, though not himself an astrologer, would confidently advise on the suitability of a gem. It was considered (even now, in most families) perilous to wear the blue sapphire (neelam) without ascertaining the position of the natural malefic, Saturn, in your birth chart. Parsis recounted tales of the neelam making or breaking fortunes. Its cousin, the yellow sapphire (pukhraj) associated with the benefic, Jupiter, was regarded as somewhat benign. Burmese vendors also sold these yellow sapphires to Parsis in Gujarat and Bombay.
Our grandmother purchased one, sometime before the First World War (1914-1919) in Navsari, and our father wore it in a gold ring on his first index finger until his death in 1975. It lay hidden for decades in the cupboard until, upon a whim, we decided to wear it; with some spectacular results. After more than a 100 years, this octagonal shaped gem looks as if it was bought yesterday. Seasoned jewelers have looked at it with awe and proclaimed their inability to obtain such a yellow sapphire for love or money. The gemstone touches the nerve ends on your index figure. It is supposed to absorb beneficial vibrations from its ruling planet and transmit, via those nerve ends, into your system. Dismiss it as unscientific claptrap or enjoy the feeling of enhanced protection. The choice is yours.
Along with rubies, Parsis loved emeralds. Wise old ladies visited the family jeweler in early afternoons to ensure maximum sunlight under which their eagle eyes would examine the pure verdant green hue and transparency of the emerald. Those days, emeralds were not ‘treated’, like now, and its many faults, called inclusions, were visible to the naked eye of these astute Parsi purchasers. Middle-class households invested in tiny emeralds and rubies for bracelets and bangles; the wealthy flaunted the larger gem, like a dozen green flashers on a very fair neck, as a sign that they had truly arrived. At weddings, envious ladies were transfixed by this green power. In the later years, some Parsi business families (more of the Johnny-come-lately type) purchased emerald jewelry from distressed royals, after the privy purses and privileges of the latter had been abolished by Indira Gandhi.
Diamonds were a relatively late entrant. Though, after Independence in 1947, jewelers like K. Wadia, who specialized in diamonds, prominently figured in Jamé and Kaiser, and were patronized not only by the Parsis, for their qualities of trust and integrity. Like the sapphire twins, and unlike the benign pearls, rubies and emeralds, diamonds too were blamed for many a misfortune descending upon some of the acquirers.
On Dhanteras (two days before Diwali, when the goddess of wealth, Mahalaxmi, is worshipped), the senior of the Parsi household would ask all members to deposit their ornaments of daily use, which would then be washed with rose petalled milk and prayed upon. This ritual is followed even today in traditional Parsi households. On Dassera and Diwali, Parsi ladies bought gold guineas (coins of one quarter ounce of gold minted in the then home country, Great Britain, from 1663 to 1814) including half and quarter guineas. Queen Victoria and George V guineas are still available in large quantities with most Parsi households. On the birth of a child, or at an engagement ceremony or navjote, these guineas are gifted in tiny red pouches.
The Parsi taste in jewelry has always been conservative, sedate and sober. Fingers flashing five carat solitaires are looked down upon, so are Parsi men looking like Goldfinger (there is this not so apocryphal story about a certain gentleman from Cusrow Baug, who rose from rags to riches, often shouting to his wife to throw from the window his gold cufflinks and gold rings, which he had ‘forgotten’ to wear to office). Seldom will you see Parsi families in over-glitzy jewelry shops poring over gold and diamonds. Even today, they patronize nondescript shops of old jewelers who conjure exquisite designs, and it is sacrilege to even ask if the jeweler is sure of his carats, quality and price. In the Parsi consciousness, it is the ultimate crime to be a jewelry exhibitionist. Carry those South Sea pearls in a sedate necklace gracefully; wear that hundred-year-old ruby encrusted bracelet daintily; and put on an old emerald (not too large) ring denoting class. Like a delicate swan with a light pink ribbon, not a gold crusted shining hippopotamus.