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A Man from Haryana, a City of Pearls

Sometime around 1915–16, a young man from a land-owning family in Haryana made an unlikely decision. He left behind the certainty of agriculture and followed a pull toward precious stones, arriving in Hyderabad — a city already famous as a trading centre for gems and jewellery. His name was Tibarumal Gupta.

The choice was not an easy one. Opting for entrepreneurship over tilling was considered risky, and moving away from family and surroundings even more so. But Tibarumal was, by all accounts, driven by something specific: an eye for exceptional gems and a feel for quality that would prove difficult to replicate. In 1920, he formally launched his jewellery firm in Hyderabad, near the iconic Charminar, in the heart of the city’s historic trading district. That founding date — 1920 — marks the start of what would become one of Hyderabad’s most enduring jewellery legacies.

Hyderabad at the time was a city of considerable wealth and refined taste, shaped by the Nizam’s court. The 7th Nizam, Osman Ali Khan, was reportedly one of the richest individuals in the world, and the jewellery culture around his court set an extraordinarily high standard. Tibarumal understood this environment well. He sourced pieces from Mumbai, Jaipur, Gujarat, and Chennai — each region had its own distinct jewellery styles — and brought them back to Hyderabad, building a reputation as someone who could offer breadth and quality that local buyers hadn’t seen consolidated in one place.

That reputation reached the Nizam’s household. Tibarumal became a favoured jeweller of the Nizam of Hyderabad, a distinction that gave the firm not only prestige but a deep education in royal tastes — an understanding of how craftsmanship and design could evolve with greater richness and sophistication over time.

Second Generation: Rambharos Gupta and the Expansion Years

Tibarumal had three sons. The mantle of the business passed to Rambharos Gupta, who is credited with the real expansion of the enterprise. While Tibarumal built the foundation and the reputation, it was Rambharos who began creating distinctive in-house designs and growing the firm’s footprint beyond its original Charminar location.

Post-independence Hyderabad was changing fast. The Nizam’s era had ended, but a new class of elite customers — industrialists, politicians, and business families — was emerging. Rambharos read this shift and adapted. The store moved from Charminar to Basheerbagh, a commercial centre, and later to Banjara Hills, by then the address of choice for Hyderabad’s wealthy. Each move tracked the city’s own economic geography.

Hyderabad’s diversity also worked in Tibarumal’s favour. Communities from Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu had settled in the city, each with their own jewellery preferences and traditions. The firm served Marwaris, Telugus, Gujaratis, and Sindhis alike — creating pieces across regional styles rather than limiting itself to South Indian designs. That breadth became a competitive advantage that more narrowly focused jewellers couldn’t easily match.

The motto that emerged from this period — “Trust is Our Tradition” — was not marketing copy so much as an operational reality. Customers returned across generations, and the name Tibarumal began to function as a guarantee of authenticity and quality in the Hyderabad market.

Third Generation: Pankaj Gupta and the Design-Driven Era

In 1988, Pankaj Gupta — Rambharos’s son and Tibarumal’s grandson — took over the creative direction of the firm. He is a third-generation jeweller, designer, and manufacturer, and under his leadership the brand shifted from being primarily a sourcing and retail operation to one with a strong design identity of its own.

Pankaj’s approach was to blend the old and the new: traditional craftsmanship and Nizami aesthetics alongside contemporary design sensibilities. He continued to focus on handcrafted, occasion jewellery — the firm’s minimum ticket size sat at around ₹5 lakh, signalling a deliberate positioning at the luxury end of the market. Under his direction, the firm also launched Tiraa by Tibarumal Jewels, a flagship boutique where creativity in hand-crafted jewellery remained the core strength, alongside limited-edition collections spanning traditional and contemporary styles.

Pankaj’s perspective on the brand’s positioning was direct: comparing Tibarumal to a regular jeweller, he once said, was like comparing a local tailor with Sabyasachi Mukherjee. The firm aimed to set jewellery trends, not follow them. That confidence was rooted in decades of understanding what discerning patrons actually wanted — not just in terms of design, but in the experience of buying something that carried weight and meaning.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted the broader jewellery industry, had a relatively limited impact on Tibarumal’s business. Because the firm operated at the luxury end and did not cater to the mass-market segment, demand patterns held more steadily than they did for volume-driven retailers. Post-pandemic, the family observed a shift toward smaller, more intimate weddings — and with it, a growing interest in jewellery that could travel, be worn daily, and carry meaning without necessarily requiring a vault.

The Moment That Changed Everything: Trishank and the Lab-Grown Question

The pivot toward lab-grown diamonds did not begin with a strategy document. It began with a single observation.

Trishank Gupta — Pankaj’s son and the fourth generation of the Tibarumal family to enter the business — recalls a client who brought in a diamond she had purchased elsewhere. When he examined it, he realised it was a lab-grown diamond. The jeweller who had sold it to her apparently hadn’t known that themselves. The incident stayed with Trishank. He began asking what it meant for the industry if lab-grown diamonds were already circulating without transparency — and, more importantly, what it would mean to offer them with full transparency, certified quality, and the trust that the Tibarumal name had spent over a century building.

He started exploring how to source the best lab-grown diamonds and how to make them genuinely accessible to a broader customer base — not as a downmarket alternative to mined diamonds, but as a considered choice in their own right. In 2025, Elevé Diamonds launched as a separate brand under the Tibarumal umbrella, with Trishank as managing director and Prajay Maganlal as CEO.

The brand’s debut flagship showroom opened in Kokapet, Hyderabad, followed by stores in Kompally and Warangal. By 2026, the Tibarumal family operates six stores in total — one Tiraa location and five Elevé Diamonds outlets, including a presence in Banjara Hills and an expansion into Coimbatore.

What Elevé Diamonds Is, and Why the Legacy Matters

Elevé Diamonds is built on a specific product philosophy: IGI-certified, CVD-grown diamonds, precision-cut and set in jewellery handcrafted by artisans trained in Tibarumal’s lineage. The diamonds are grown using Chemical Vapor Deposition technology — an above-ground process that produces stones with the same optical, chemical, and physical properties as mined diamonds, without the environmental and ethical concerns of extraction. Every piece carries IGI certification, giving buyers independent verification of the stone’s quality.

The design direction is shaped by Pankaj Gupta, whose aesthetic runs through every collection. The Nizam line draws on the royal motifs that defined Hyderabad’s jewellery culture for centuries. The Victorian Polki interpretations blend European and Mughal influences. And the Charminar Collection — launched at the brand’s debut — pays direct tribute to the city’s architectural identity, designed by Pankaj and produced in a no-duplicates philosophy: each piece is unique, not mass-produced.

For buyers in Hyderabad who are considering lab grown diamond jewellery, the Tibarumal lineage behind Elevé answers a question that often goes unspoken in the lab-grown category: who is actually making this, and do they know what they’re doing? A century of diamond expertise, a direct connection to Nizami craftsmanship traditions, and four generations of family accountability are not things a newer brand can manufacture quickly.

Elevé also carries a social responsibility dimension. A portion of proceeds supports initiatives including Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and artisan welfare programs — reflecting a commitment to the communities that have sustained the craft over generations. Expansion plans for 2026 include further domestic locations and a move into the United States market.

The brand’s positioning — what it calls “relatable luxury” — targets young professionals buying everyday diamond pieces, families seeking sustainable choices for milestone occasions, and destination wedding buyers who want to wear real diamonds without carrying mined stones worth crores across borders. It is a wide net, but one cast with a specific and credible backstory.

For anyone looking at diamond rings or diamond earrings in Hyderabad today, the question of provenance and trust matters as much as the stone’s cut grade. That is exactly the gap Elevé was designed to fill — and it is the reason the 1920 founding date still appears in every piece of brand communication a century later.

The Timeline at a Glance

1915–16 — Tibarumal Gupta arrives in Hyderabad from Haryana, drawn by the city’s gem trade.

1920 — Tibarumal Jewellers founded near Charminar. The firm quickly earns recognition from the Nizam of Hyderabad’s household.

Post-1947 — Second generation, Rambharos Gupta, takes over. The store expands from Charminar to Basheerbagh and then to Banjara Hills, tracking the city’s economic migration. Distinctive in-house designs begin to define the brand.

1988 — Third generation, Pankaj Gupta, assumes creative direction. The firm deepens its design identity, launches Tiraa by Tibarumal Jewels, and positions itself firmly at the luxury end of the market.

2020s — Fourth generation, Trishank Gupta, joins the business. A client encounter with an unidentified lab-grown diamond prompts Trishank to investigate the category seriously.

2025 — Elevé Diamonds launches as a standalone brand. Flagship stores open in Kokapet, Kompally, and Warangal. The brand introduces IGI-certified CVD diamonds, the Nizam and Victorian Polki collections, and the handcrafted Charminar Collection.

2026 — The Tibarumal family operates six stores across the Elevé and Tiraa brands. Expansion into Coimbatore and planning underway for international locations, including the United States. The Elevé Diamonds online store brings the collection to buyers across India and beyond.