Zaveri Bazaar

The narrow lanes of Zaveri Bazaar are defined by heavy iron shutters protecting storefronts packed with gold. Since the mid-nineteenth century, this district has functioned as the center of India's bullion trade. Merchants once weighed jewelry on manual scales in cramped stalls that barely fit two people. In the mid-nineteen seventies, the gold control act forced these traders to operate in the shadows, creating a complex web of handshakes and unwritten contracts that still governs how gold moves through these cramped alleys today.