As I fossicked through the hundreds of necklaces and beads and yet more necklaces in Lall’s in Delhi’s Sunder Nagar, I remarked to Catriona, my fellow fossicker, that the shop reminded me of Lurgan Sahib’s antique shop in “Kim” – only with electricity.
Remove the lighting from Lall’s, and without too much imagination you could be in Lurgan Sahib’s amazing treasure house, sifting through mounds of objects and statues and jewellery from all over India.
Catriona had taken me to Lall’s especially to look at their Naga jewellery, and that was to be the beginning of an afternoon spent looking longingly through amazing necklaces, literally trunks loads of them, and we never even got started on the fabrics and the statues and the bronzes….
A true modern day treasure house, worthy of Rudyard Kipling. Except it’s air-conditioned.
The tribal jewellery from the North East – especially Nagaland – is what fascinated me, and there are some truly lovely things on offer.
And, oh joy of joys, they mostly have price tags, which makes a poor haggler like me feel instantly more relaxed :
See, I told you, price tags (below).
And when I said there are trunks full of treasures, I bet you didn’t believe me…
There are statues and fabrics and brass objects and…and…and…
The staff were polite and (another joy of joys) totally un-pushy. I can’t abide shops where the salesmen try and entice you in, and then follow you round the shop, stuck to you like iron filings to a magnet. Nothing like that here.
I didn’t tell them that I blog and write reviews.
Obviously we shopped. And obviously we paid our own bills.
A good find. To be re-fossicked.
They take credit cards but, like so many shops in Delhi, charge you an extra % for using them.
I want to contact you..!!