New Delhi, March 8 -- The interview is well underway when Kunal Shah, co-founder of luxury jewellery brands AURUS and Moi, shares an interesting fact. "Did you know that for 1,500 years the world's glass beads came from Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu? Those beads travelled by land or ocean to Muziris, the ancient port near Kochi, and from there spread across the world."

Over time, Arikamedu lost its position to Venice. But the trajectory of glass beads would eventually take a U-turn. Adopted by the nobility of West Africa, soon enough, Gujarati traders living in East Africa would bring these beads - considered so valuable that they were bartered for gold - back to Kochi. Another trail saw migrant pastoral communities from West Asia bringing the...