My First Diamond 💎

100

A tiny stone, a big story—and a lesson in experience!

My first diamond came from my salary.

Not my corporate salary. Not even a monthly salary. It was 1990, and I was working as an adhoc lecturer, taking two or three lectures a week. At the end of the year, I received a lump-sum payment. I decided to do something really grown-up with it.

I would buy a diamond!

Now, walking into a gold jewellery store to buy a diamond in 1990 was no small matter. I knew absolutely nothing about diamonds. Cut? Clarity? Carat? Certification?

My only criterion was much simpler: “This is how much money I have.” 😄

So I took the help of Dr. Sunita Soman, who kindly accompanied me. I told her my budget. She nodded thoughtfully and said, “You should be able to get a small diamond. Perhaps we can get a ring made.” Off we went to P. N. Gadgil & Sons.

The salesman showed us a few diamonds. Dr. Soman examined them with the seriousness of someone choosing a life partner. Finally, after much deliberation, she found one that fitted my budget.

Success!

Except there was one small problem. The diamond needed a ring to sit in. Naturally, the ring cost money too! But by then I was emotionally committed. 😄 So I paid for the gold ring and proudly walked out with my first diamond.

A diamond ring bought from my own hard-earned money!

I wore it on special occasions and felt quite pleased with myself. Eventually, as happens with jewellery meant for “special occasions,” it spent more time in the bank locker than on my finger. Years later, I took it out and discovered another little problem.

It didn’t fit.

I had changed. The ring had not. So I took it to a goldsmith to have it enlarged. He placed the ring on a metal rod marked with circles, gently tapped it from different sides with a small instrument and—voilà! The ring fit perfectly.

I smiled, wore it for a while and, predictably…put it back in the locker.

The next time I took it out was nearly twenty years later. By then, I had decided that perhaps it could at least serve as a piece of gold during Lakshmi Puja. Safe. Sentimental. Valuable. Or so I thought.

Then came the Udaan moment

Recently, at an Udaan event organised by Wonder Women Wednesday, I met Sandhya from Abharan. She sells artificial jewellery that looks remarkably like gold. She asked us to remember the first piece of jewellery that had given us joy, write about it on a sticky note and put it on the wall.

I thought for a moment and just like that, I remembered my diamond ring. I wrote about it on the note and told Sandhya the story. Something happened and that little diamond suddenly felt precious again. I came home thinking:

Enough of the locker. I’m going to wear my diamond!

Except… It didn’t fit. Again. 😄

So I walked into a jewellery store. This time, instead of admiration, I got a reality check. I was told that increasing the size of the ring could cause the diamond to break.

The advice was:

• melt the ring and recover the gold,
• make another piece from the gold,
• or add more gold and make something new.

Then came the real shock. “The diamond has no resale value.”

Excuse me?

My diamond? No value?

You pay a handsome amount to buy one, and then apparently it can become almost worthless when you want to sell it! The reasons followed: it was small, there was no certificate, no bill and no documentation to establish its provenance.

I was aghast.

My precious diamond had apparently gone from “investment” to “decorative stone with emotional value.” I approached several jewellers in Bangalore. The opinion remained more or less the same.

Finally, I took the ring to Pune and sought help from my friend Jayshree. She too confirmed that diamonds like mine did not really have resale value. But she reassured me.

“Take it to my jeweller, Niphadkar. He’ll do justice to it.”

So I did.

I explained the entire saga to him.

He examined the ring carefully and then suggested something surprisingly simple:

“If you want to wear it, we can increase the size.”

I was relieved—but still nervous.

I told him what the other jewellers had said about the diamond breaking. He smiled.

Then he turned the ring upside down and showed me something I hadn’t noticed. The diamond was properly set into the ring. There was no exposed portion that could be damaged while enlarging it.

That was when I realised the difference between giving an opinion and knowing what you’re looking at.

He called an elderly, experienced goldsmith and asked him to do the needful. The goldsmith placed a triangular metal rod on the glass counter. He slipped the ring onto it. Then he began tapping. Gently. Very, very gently.

How gently?

Nothing on the glass counter made a sound.

The counter didn’t crack. The diamond didn’t shatter. The world did not come to an end. 😄

Within a couple of minutes, he handed the ring back to me. I slipped it onto my right-hand ring finger. It fit-Perfectly.

I walked out beaming.

So what is my diamond worth?

Financially? Apparently, not much. Sentimentally? Priceless.

That little ring taught me something far more valuable than its resale price. Opinions can come from knowledge. But experience comes from years of actually doing the work.

Several people told me what could go wrong. One experienced craftsman looked at the ring, understood how the diamond was set and simply said, “It can be done.”

He didn’t need complicated explanations. He needed his eyes, his hands and decades of experience. Perhaps that’s why we should be a little careful before accepting every confident opinion as fact. Sometimes the person who has done something a thousand times sees what the person who has only read about it cannot.

As for my little diamond?

It has finally escaped the bank locker. I wear it proudly today. After all these years, it may not have much resale value… …but it has certainly regained its wearing value. 💎😊

For me, that’s worth far more.