Although valued as “gemstones” pearls (moti) are neither gems nor stones. They come from the oyster: a shelled marine creature that looks very much like a pair of cymbals or castanets. The pearl is not a part of any oyster’s body by birth. It is a growth that forms inside its body because of its reaction to an external irritant particle like a grain of sand which might have entered it through the gap between the pair of shells.

Such a particle causes the same irritation and stress to the oyster that dirt in our eyes causes us. It’s reaction is identical to ours: like our eyes go into a frenzy of blinking and furious batting of eyelids and try to wash away the particle by tears, similarly the oyster reacts to the particle by secreting layer upon layer of a substance called nacre upon the particle to shield itself from it.

In our case the irritation is temporary. For oysters it goes on day in and day out, year in and year out, the irritation progressing to trauma, pain and suffering while layers of nacre continue covering the particle and building up into a pearl.

To be precise, in nature when grit gets embedded into an oyster’s soft body, as protection it begins covering it with nacre. A pearl is thus formed – a result of a minimum of three, to a maximum of seven years of suffering.

To simulate this natural accident, man makes incisions in the oyster’s soft body and puts several pieces of gravel into it, resulting in years of painful suffering and eventual killing which may or may not even result in producing perfect pearls.

Every type of pearl is animal in origin and can only be produced in living shelled molluscs. Removal of the pearl inside involves splitting open the molluscs/mussels/pearl oysters by inserting a knife between the two valves and twisting it to cut the adductor muscle that holds the shell closed, thus effectively killing the creature… and “just too bad” if no pearl is found or has been properly formed which is more often, than not.

Keshi or seed pearls are less than 2 mm in diameter and irregularly shaped. They are termed as by-products of pearl cultivation because they have failed to catch-on and develop into cultured pearls. (In India seed pearls are extensively used in zardozi embroidery usually done on heavy silk, velvet or satin utilising zari of different thicknesses.)

Mabé, blister or button pearls are half-pearls that grow flush against the inside of a pearl oyster’s shell. They can be naturally found or can be grown/cultured in Akoya, South Sea, Tahitian and Freshwater mollusks, however Ptera sterna, Ptera penguin and Pinctada maxima molluscs are usually used. Cultured Mabé pearls are grown in almost any shape although rounds, ovals and drop-shapes are the most common. A flat or hemispherical nucleus or disc is glued to the inside of the live oyster’s shell. These discs get covered with layer upon layer of nacre excreted by the mollusk thus producing the characteristic pearl iridescence and sheen. The torture lasts for at least 8 months but usually is as long as 6 years, by which time a millimetre or more of nacre will have built up over the glued-on disc. Mabé pearls can be as small as 5 millimetres and as large as 20 millimetres, depending on the size of their mollusk host and the introduced hemispherical disc.  The Mabé pearl is brutally cut off the shell using a circle-bit or hollow core drill bit, and the disc removed. No thought is given to the poor oyster that has suffered and been killed.

New Zealand produces Mabé pearls of abalone that are commonly referred to as blue pearls or pāua. Osmena pearls are occasionally sold as Mabé pearls, but are not pearls because they are actually carved pieces of the chambered nautilus shell, or turbo snail shells.

Irrespective of the type, colour (like white, black, crème, pink, golden, fuchsia, maroon, green, grey, lavender, chocolate brown and in hues of blue) or name given to the pearls, the natural ones being Conch, Melo Melo, Abalone and Scallop, commonly available from Iraq (Basra), Venezuela and Australia; and cultured pearls being Saltwater, Akoya/Classic, Freshwater/Biwaco/Baroque/South Sea/Tahitian, Cortez, and Keshi/Seed; and those called Hyderabad, Mandapam, the famous Mikimoto of Japan, etc., ALL pearls have a hidden history of pain and killing. (Although Hyderabad is considered as the biggest pearl retail market in the world, it does not produce a single pearl. It is Chandanpet’s expertise in pearl drilling that has, for centuries, made Hyderabad famous for pearls.) Chinese pearls fall into the cultured freshwater pearls category – most of these are imported and sold in India. They are cheap (as compared to marine pearls) because of low labour and production costs, added to which breeding conditions (environment, food, temperature and salinity of water) for oysters in the southern regions of China are said to be ideal. Even Majorica pearls of Spain termed “man-made pearls” and some other imitations like Shell pearls and those called “artificial/fake/simulated pearls” use fish scales and/or lustre/dust from cultured pearls in their making.

By end-2015 a farmer at Gadchiroli was producing cultured pearls in his 900 sq metre freshwater pond. Oysters were being fished from the Wainganga River, cultivated (read tortured) for 18 months and then killed for pearls. The farmer had been convinced to switch from rice cultivation to pearl farming by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra. It is unfortunate that the Maharashtra state government trains and gives guidance in pearl farming (and not in growing crops such as say pearl millet) to farmers.

The main freshwater mussel species used for the production of pearls in India are Lamellidens marginalis, Corrianus and Parreysia corrugate.

A pearl oyster farming project report recommends that freshwater pearl culture farming should be undertaken along with other fish farming or any other aquaculture business. It clearly states that a nucleus (also called bead) made from dead mussel shell is inserted along with some solution in the mussels to get the required or desired pearl shape, and that round, half-round, and other designer pearls can be thus produced. In ½ to ¾ acre about 9,000 to 10,000 mussels can be accommodated and the technique to be utilised is double implantations (actually very many more than two implantations) in a single mussel. Mortality is at least 20%. Only 10% pearls produced are ‘A’ grade, 20% ‘B’ grade and sellable after a minimum of 15 to 18 months.

Similarly, we should not appreciate or admire the beauty of pearls in any form any where, for example, the Ganpati idol at Byculla, Mumbai which was in 2009 decorated with 21,000 pearls.

Capiz shells which have a similar lustre to mother of pearl are mainly found and used in the Philippines for decorative items such as vases, window panes, and jewellery.

Shell pearls, as the name indicates, are made from shells. Pieces of mother-of-pearl, oyster-shell, coral or conch-shell are spherically shaped, then coated with several layers of pearl dust, baked and polished. They could even be coated with essence d’Orient (a solution containing bleak fish scales) like glass beads which are the base of imitation pearls.

In April 2019 a biologist from the University of Rochester invented artificial mother-of-pearl using bacteria and claimed that it had the toughness of natural nacre.

Fish pearl/Mach Mani is brownish yellow and is obtained from the mouth of particular fish. This ancient gem stone is related to the Ramayana. However, a glass bead lined or coated with essence d’Orient made from fish scales to simulate a pearl is also called fish pearl.

The good news is that by 2014, in Hyderabad considered the “city of pearls” (where more than 1,500 shops sell pearls) traders admitted to a 5% fall in demand despite the price of pearls having also fallen 10-20%, and had therefore begun selling precious gemstones. They blamed China for flooding the market with cultured pearls. The “BWC Pearls = Pain” campaign must have to some extent helped in bringing down the demand because soon after, the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council declared that Export of Pearls from a high of $6.75 million in September 2013 fell as low as $0.07 million in September 2014.

Discrepancies have been found between the Commerce Ministry and the Gems & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (under the same ministry!) on the import/export data of pearls. However, the import of raw pearls positively increased, if not tripled 2015-16 onwards. Cultured and worked pearls imported (mainly from Hong Kong and UAE) were valued above $2 billion in 2016-17 and 2017-18, while export of pearls (and stones) from India during this period remained stagnant at around $500 million a year. It is baffling because earlier value-wise imports were low, but exports high.

Lastly let it be known that since the Victorian era pearls have been traditionally referred to as mourning jewellery. If for no other reason, then may be this inauspicious use will make people stop wearing pearls.