Jewellery shop

I spent the afternoon chatting to my Kashmiri friend  in his shop. We discussed the soaring prices of silver and gold, making business more and more of a challenge, the increasing numbers of middle class Indian tourists, who come into the shop, ask to see everything but seldom buy anything, sometimes driving away foreign customers, who do buy. The shop is a treasure trove of skilfully crafted pieces of silver jewellery with precious and semi precious stones, Tibetan singing bowls, hand painted Tankas, crystals of all shapes and sizes, witchy looking dousing crystals and crystal balls. And that is just the surface. Ask Sunni to show you something and out come drawers full of packets, that he unwraps, to display piles of rings, or bracelets, or whatever it is you are interested in. He is an everlasting fountain of information about his merchandise, even pulling out reference books to the healing qualities of the various different stones.

As I was sitting there an American buyer came in and proceeded to place an order for earrings and bracelets to be specially made to his specification. He was amazed thatmy friend had workshops here in Mc Cloud Ganj, where his jewellery was made, that he could email a design and Sunni could make it and mail it to him.

The road leading to Temple road is lined with Kashmiri shops, all selling superb quality jewellery, carpets, embroidered cloths, shawls, rugs and shoes. Their merchandise is expensive, but they know the quality can’t be matched.