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The Humble Origins
The Partition of India
More than 70 years ago today, the Indian subcontinent was divided by its British colonial rulers into two nation-states –India and Pakistan.
Late Mr Harbans Lal Chouhan (1923-2022) a humble job working silversmith, forcefully migrated with a young family from Daska, Sialkot (now in Pakistan) to settle in Amritsar, India.
Early days
Foundation of chouhan jewellers
After struggling in the early years post migration - working odd jobs at first and then as a goldsmith making jewelry entirely with own hands, Mr H.L Chouhan founds Chouhan Jewellers as a firm.
As a manufacturing firm specializing in handmade stone studded jewelry, Chouhan Jewellers grew steadily to become a supplier to some of the most prominent jewellery houses across India.
Covid-19 Strikes
Rudradhan is born
With Covid-19 wrecking havoc on the unorganized handicrafts manufacturing sector, in June 2021, we explored the possibilities of making our jewelry in cheaper alternate base metals so as to keep our large job-worker base occupied, meaningfuly employed and also explore the possibility of extending from a B2B entity to a D2C one through e-commerce medium.
Having never made jewelry in any metal except gold prior, we tried a few base metals and finalized on sterling silver as it was healthwise safer to work on for the karigars.
It must be noted that if it were not for the extreme conditions that the covid era presented, getting our gold karigars to adapt to silver without compromising finish might have been unthinkable.
Setting up the online business
The begining
- An instagram page by the name Rudradhan is set up in august 2021. Initially the page is set up with a few available photos of our 22k gold jewelry.
- Rudradhan is granted a trademark licence from the Trademarks Registry of India in Aug 2021
- Trial and error stock production commences on sterling silver as the base metal for jewelry. Given the pandemic, it was not until december 2021 end that we were able to acquire in-house gold plating equipment
Setting up the online business
The begining
- First verbal order received through Instagram to make a replica of a 22k gold ring on sterling silver
- The domain rudradhan.com is purchased. Due to lack of knowhow and the pandemic situation, it was not until dec 2021 that www.rudradhan.com went online as an E-commerce store.
- An etsy shop is set up in oct 2021
- We collaborated with an american webstore (deccanjewelry.com) selling handmade artificial Indian jewelry to sell our products on their platform
Setting up the online business
The Begining
- www.rudradhan.com goes online with mostly white silver finish products and only few gold plated silver products
- Gold plating equipment is acquired. Technique learnt through self trial and error over video calls.