BENGALURU: As Bengaluru started to grow as a British cantonment town during the latter half of the 19th century, a former coloured beads vendor, who would hawk his wares on a bicycle in and around Commercial Street, quickly grew to be one of the leading jewellers in the city, serving high-profile English and Indian clients alike.
Established in the 1880s by Krishniah Chetty, the namesake C Krishniah Chetty (CKC) Group of Jewellers gained so much national and international credence within the next fifty years that the then-budding Swiss watchmaker Rolex, started to sell special edition watches inscribed with the CKC name.
A coffee table book titled The Bejewelled Past chronicles the group’s long history and its role in the larger evolution of trends in jewellery design and history. A collaborative effort between CKC’s managing director C Vinod Hayagriv and author Usha Balakrishnan, the book details some of the most notable pieces of jewellery that the group has produced over the years.
“For much of our history, we didn’t have an archival system, so a lot of historic designs have been lost. It was only in the year 2000 that we started to make a deliberate effort to preserve designs. At the same time, we started collecting information from the public, who would bring us jewellery made by us in the past, which we would photograph and document.
Later, we started publishing that information through newsletters,” shares Hayagriv, adding, “But soon we realised that we were putting out so much information that it would be better to come out with a book instead of printing newsletters. Books are long-lasting, can go into much more detail and provide more context. I approached author Usha Balakrishna, who has a PhD in Indian history to give a structure to the book.”
A passion project born out of Hayagriv’s personal interest in the history of jewellery and that of his family-owned business, the book explores fascinating aspects of the jewellery store’s history. “It always fascinated me that our family-run business began by selling coloured beads. Of all the things he could have dealt with, why did he choose to sell coloured beads? Only when I started exploring did I discover the importance and the rich history of these beads. To this day, beads are one of our most important segments,” he says.
Meanwhile, in addition to providing an exhaustive history of the evolution of jewellery making in South and Central India, the book features artworks that provide a glimpse of the kind of pieces worn by notable names in the country’s history – Raja Raja Chola, Vishnuvardhana, Krishnadevaraya, Ibrahim Adil Shah II, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Marthanda Varma among others. “Now we had to bring them to life. So I decided to commission artworks that could make the book richer,” Hayagriv concludes.