SPARKLING REVOLUTION

A CHEAPER, GREENER ALTERNATIVE TO MINED DIAMONDS, THE LAB GROWN DIAMOND IS EXCITING DIAMANTAIRES ACROSS THE WORLD AND IN INDIA. GOVERNMENT PUSH AND THE ENTRY OF NEW PLAYERS OPEN UP A BRIGHT UNIVERSE OF PROFITABLE OPPORTUNITY

- JUMANA SHAH AND ROHIT PARIHAR

Deep inside a two-storeyed building, overlooking a well-manicured lawn at a diamond processing unit in Surat in Gujarat, sits an air-conditioned laboratory where a curious process is at work. In a few dozen non-descript machines, each the size of a small refrigerator, being meticulously monitored digitally each second by an expert, is growing a fruit like no other: a diamond in the rough.

A little further, in a building just across the lawn, dozens of polishers seated in another air-conditioned room are focused on the stones in their hands, illuminated by powerful table lamps. Classic Kishore Kumar songs playing in the background, they deftly chip and shape the tiny stone into a 'princess-cut' diamond. There was a time when these precious gems would travel miles across continents from the African mines to the diamond bourses in Europe-before landing in the hands of skilled cutters and polishers in India. Today, what you see 60-year-old Ramesh Sondakar handling, for instance, has just come from the opposite building.

Lest you think you are on the precincts of a fake diamond factory, think again. You are in the presence of what are rather unpretentiously called lab grown or synthetic or man-made diamonds.

WHAT IS A LAB DIAMOND?