We head, first, to the sorting department. As we walk down the winding corridor that leads from his office to the work-floors, I experience that prickly sensation in the nape of the neck that accompanies the sensation of being watched.
There are 560 cameras in this floor alone, Vasantbhai tells me; a dozen trained security officers sit deep inside the building's basement, constantly monitoring every frame, every person, each activity. I look around, as we head towards the sorting department, and cannot spot a single camera; yet the feeling of being constantly watched persists.
Within a cubicle bounded by iron grilles sit six overseers; in front of each is a small window, like that of a bank teller. An employee comes up to one of the overseers; he presents an ID card. The overseer opens a safe and hands out a tissue-encased package, about the size of a baby's fist. The employee signs for it, then makes his way back to his desk.
Once there, he opens up the package, and spills the contents -- a mix of blackish and dirty white pebbles -- onto the tray in front of him. He screws a loupe (the diamond worker's version of the monocle) into his right eye, picks up a pair of forceps, and starts sorting through the diamonds. The process is impossibly fast, almost as quick as your eye can follow. In minutes, the single pile becomes three piles.
These, the employee says, pointing to the smallest of them, are the best -- high-yield diamonds that when cut, will be very valuable. The second pile, he says, are the in-between ones -- good enough to prove valuable when cut, but for various reasons a touch below top quality. And the third pile, the largest of the lot, comprises the industrials -- diamonds with deep flaws, that once cut will have little or no retail value.
"Basically," Vasantbhai explains, "the sorters are looking at clarity, and looking for flaws within the stone." He picks up a large one, from the 'industrials' pile. "See, this one looks large, but if you look at it through the loupe, you will find a fracture running through the middle of it. This means you cannot cut it big -- it will fracture along the fault lines, so the best you will get out of it are several tiny stones."
The three piles are individually wrapped; various notations are made on each; the sorter heads back to the overseer's cabin, to hand in the packets and get a fresh lot. The process has taken him a little under 15 minutes. "This is one reason we are so successful in the diamond business," Vasantbhai tells me. "Our workers do more in four hours than those in Antwerp and other centres can do in eight."
Photograph: Rough uncut diamonds look like pebbles, before workers do their magic on them. Photograph: Paresh Gandhi
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