The city with gold in its sewage lines

Firozabad is India’s glass capital, most famous for producing traditional glass bangles. But the city is the source of another treasure – one that’s hidden and extremely hard-won.”He burned the sari and from it, handed us a thin slice of pure silver,” said my mother, describing a moment that had taken place 30 years ago at her home in the city of Firozabad. The man in her story was no magician, but an extractor. Like many similar artisans in my mother’s hometown, he’d go door to door collecting old saris to mine them for their precious metals.  Until the 1990s, saris were often threaded with pure silver and gold, and I remember digging into my mother’s wardrobe, searching for her glittery outfits like treasure. But as she told me, the extractors were looking for something even more valuable than clothing – they were looking for trash, and a kind of trash specific to this city. So now, to learn more about that seemingly mystical transfiguration of extraction, I was driving back to Firozabad, a city overshadowed by the nearby Taj Mahal (45km west) and better known for being India’s capital of glass bangles than for its precious metals. But as I found out, for some industrious artisans, the city was nothing less than a gold mine – a place where the precious metal once trickled through the sewers. Founded in 1354 CE by the sultan of Delhi, Firoz Shah Tughlaq, Firozabad was built as a palace city that, according to court historian Shams-i-Siraj’s writings, was twice the size of the walled city of Shahjahanbad (today’s Old Delhi, devised by the same ruler who built the Taj Mahal). According to Rana Safvi, historian and author of The Forgotten Cities of Delhi, it was “used as a prototype for later Mughal-era fortresses, as this was the first time the concept of a Diwan-e-Aam [audience hall] for the public and a Diwan-e-Khas [private audience hall] for the nobles was introduced.” While Safvi notes that very few traces of that old city remain, I saw that today’s Firozabad has its own type of grandeur. As I drove into the city, almost every lane was a kaleidoscope of pushcarts and trucks loaded with colourful glass bangles of every shade glimmering under the morning sun. The bracelets hold a significant place in Indian tradition, symbolising prosperity and good fortune for married women and new brides, who may wear stacks of them on each arm. With approximately 150 glass bangle factories today, it’s no wonder Firozabad has earned the nicknames City of Glass and City of Bangles.The bracelets hold a significant place in Indian tradition, symbolising prosperity and good fortune for married women and new brides (Credit: Xavier Galiana/Getty Images)The craft goes back at least 200 years. One theory is that several of Firoz Shah’s attendees were migrants from Rajasthan who specialised in this jewellery form. They taught it to local artists, and as time went on, the industry expanded to the production of glass bottles and chandeliers, the latter of which was in high demand by the kingdom’s royal courts and nobles. As bans on foreign imports were implemented after World War One and World War Two, the glass industry of Firozabad experienced a drastic growth. After India’s Independence in 1947, it soon became India’s leading glass – and bangle – supplier, and today accounts for approximately 70% of the country’s glass production. Which is why it was so surprising to me that after several trips to the city and discussions with locals and residents involved with the glass industry, I learned that Firozabad creates another precious commodity, one that only emerges after the bangles are made: gold.The craft of making glass bangles goes back at least 200 years (Credit: Ramsha Zubairi)Traditionally, glass bangles produced in the city were decorated with pure gold polish. This meant that many other items used during the process came into contact with the precious metal: the bottles and containers filled with polish, the fabric scraps used for buffing, the baskets that held the refined bangles, and even bits of broken bracelets themselves. This gold-coated waste from bangle factories and workshops, and from the homes of the craftsmen, was often disposed of in the city’s sewage pipelines, essentially creating a secret stream of potential wealth. Once collected and cleaned, this waste was mined to extract the metal. “For those oblivious, these materials are nothing more than trash,” said Mohammad Sultan, who owns a jewellery store in Firozabad. “But those familiar with the metal know the true value of this ‘trash’.” Sultan himself has worked as a gold extractor for more than 25 years, and explained that the technique of wresting the metal from these discards is presently known by only a handful of artists – and that it varies depending on the item. “The disposed bottles of gold are left in a bucket of thinner or turpentine for a few hours to remove the gold residues,” Sultan explained. “The residue sets on the surface of the thinner and is then wiped off with a piece of fabric, which is allowed to dry and is finally burned to ashes. After this, the ashes, with the addition of a few chemicals, are set on a thick layer of sand on a stove or heater, which is allowed to heat until the ashes turn into liquid. Once the liquid cools down, it transforms to the glass leaving behind the gold residues which now rests below the sand.”Traditionally, glass bangles produced in the city were decorated with pure gold polish (Credit: Xavier Galiana/Getty Images)”It takes a lot of patience and learning to master the art, and it is certainly not something that can be learned in a week’s time,” Sultan said, adding that it took him a few years before he could extract the metal on his own. Once extracted, the gold is sold off to jewellers. Over the years, the city has witnessed extractors from humble backgrounds – but with an exceptional metier for the craft, hard work and a touch of luck – rewrite their fortunes. “The craft has turned several into millionaires,” said Mohammad Kasim Shafi, another gold extractor in Firozabad. Though there are no documented records of the craft’s history, locals who learned it from their parents or grandparents estimate it may have been in practice for the past 80 years or more. However, gold prices have surged in recent times, and the polish has largely been substituted with less expensive chemicals. So, although the skill has been passed down through generations, it is slowly fading away. “Since extracting gold is a work of precision and exceptional skill, the practice, even before the substitution of the metal, was known by limited people,” said Shafi. “But when bangles began to be polished and designed with other chemicals, the shortage of gold naturally led to the eclipse of the craft.”With approximately 150 glass bangle factories today, Firozabad has earned the nicknames City of Glass and City of Bangles (Credit: Ramsha Zubairi)Though the use of gold has considerably decreased in the industry, some still incorporate it into their bracelets. Walking down the market streets of Firozabad, I passed through several workshops where workers were engrossed in making or decorating bracelets, some using pure gold polish. The next day, as I sat in a cab to return home, I realised how different the city looked to me now that I knew its secret. My mother’s memories of throw-away items transformed into precious metals had a new depth now that I’d heard the tales of Firozabad’s treasure-hunting gold extractors of past and present. Together, they wove a story that turned a city I thought I knew into one with a little-known layer of history streaming just under the surface.  —  Join more than three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called “The Essential List”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.