The narrow lanes of Varaccha in Surat are crammed with buildings that are connected to each other. Most of these have several small rooms in which workers sit at tables.
Tubelights attached to the tables rise above the workers’ heads. At the centre of each table is a round disc, usually made of metal, which hums softly as it spins. Workers hold metallic devices that look like thick pens. At the tip of each device is a tiny diamond, which a worker gently strikes against the disc to shape and polish it.
One of these rooms is rented by Harish Patel, who for three decades polished diamonds as an employee with a unit, before deciding to start his own unit in October 2025. He bought five such tables with discs, and hired 30 workers. “I had thought I would be able to earn at least Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 more every month,” Patel said, sitting at a table at the end of the room. As he spoke, he handed out to his employees diamonds they had to work on, after noting in a register the number of diamonds he was giving each.
But in late February, when the West Asia conflict began, the diamond…
