Johari Bazaar & MI Road

Johari Bazaar — literally the "Jewellers' Market" — is the jewellery heart of Jaipur's walled Pink City, and Jaipur is widely called the Gemstone Capital of the World. Its signature is coloured stones, emeralds above all, and a trio of traditional crafts found together almost nowhere else.

The market is as old as the city. When Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II founded Jaipur in 1727 — laying it out to Vastu Shastra principles — he set aside this street for jewellers and gem merchants and invited skilled craftsmen from across India to settle. Many of the shops are still family businesses passed down for generations, having served both the royal court and ordinary people.

Three techniques define Jaipur's craft: kundan, in which gemstones are set into a framework of pure gold foil; jadau, where uncut diamonds and stones are embedded directly into gold without prongs, the labour-intensive heart of North-Indian bridal jewellery; and meenakari, the vivid enamelling often worked into the reverse of the same pieces. Around all of it, Jaipur remains one of the world's great centres for cutting and trading coloured gemstones.

It is, unmistakably, a living bazaar — pink-arched and photogenic, gold and stones sold among the textiles and sweets of the old city — rather than a luxury arcade.