Two blocks from the thundering intersection of Johari Bazaar and Tripolia Bazaar, past the lac-bangle sellers and the kundan setters, a narrow staircase leads to the third-floor workshop of Haji Karim ud-Din. I climbed those stairs last January carrying a letter from the Amber Fort conservation office, and found three men bent over small copper plates, each holding a different stage of the ancient meenakari process that has defined Jaipur's jewellers for four centuries.
A Thousand-Degree Canvas
Meenakari is not painting. It is closer to architecture: the artisan first engraves shallow gold walls, called chitai, and packs each cell with a single colour of powdered glass. The piece is fired near 1,000 degrees Celsius in a sequence that can consume an entire day and destroy the work in a single careless second.