Richa Goyal Sikri’s debut book sheds new light on the African coloured gemstone industry

Sikri aimed for a balanced representation, dedicating about half of the book to stories from local Africans and the other half to international contributors who have shaped the industry. A lot of her time was spent on primary and secondary research, and she describes the former as akin to therapy sessions, where she engaged deeply with her subjects via long phone calls to unlock their memories.

“It was almost like I was sitting in their ear, guiding them through their past,” she shares, adding that it allowed her to capture nuanced details that might otherwise have been overlooked or forgotten. “People’s memories aren’t always crystal clear,” she notes, emphasising accuracy in storytelling, which led to a long and gruelling secondary research process of verifying facts and supplementing personal accounts with historical context. Each story in the book also includes an author’s note that provides additional insights, like postscript notes found in films based on true events.

While Sikri is a stickler for journalistic integrity, she wanted to ensure that the book was also entertaining and could appeal to a diverse group of people, regardless of their prior knowledge of gemstones. As such, she incorporates some fictional elements into the true stories, enhancing narrative flow while maintaining authenticity.

The result is both educational and entertaining—a blend Sikri describes as “edutainment”, adding that “this is not a history book; it’s more like [widely read English comic novelist] P G Wodehouse meets Indiana Jones. It’s written so that even someone who doesn’t know that an emerald is green and a ruby is red can pick up this book, read it, understand it, and be entertained, first and foremost, and not realise that by the time they finish the story, they’ve also been educated.”

Through her journey writing the book, the relationships Sikri built are as integral to its success as the stories themselves. “I have fallen head over heels in love with every single person who’s in this book,” she says. The protagonists range from renowned industry heroes including Campbell Bridges, the late Scottish-born Kenyan gemmologist who discovered a rare green garnet called tsavorite, to industry “nobodies” such as Naushad Osman, the son of an aquamarine miner in Kenya.

“There are a lot of people whose stories are in the book, who are still struggling and even people in the industry don’t know anything about them. They’re simple folks but their stories are authentic,” says Sikri.

Through documenting these human stories, Sikri also reveals an inspiring spirit among those in an often misunderstood industry. “They don’t stop laughing or smiling,” she reflects. “They’re not in this for the money; each one of them is a gem addict like me, so I think we also bonded and connected at that level. I was already in love with this industry and these people, but I was just completely blown away by the kindness, generosity and the brave spirit.

“And it’s not just the individuals featured in this story, but also the people that they represent. For each one of them, there are many more like them whose stories have yet to be told.”

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