About Us
There is a poem that begins, “People are made of places.” We believe the same is true of gemstones. Each stone is born of the earth—shaped over millennia by fire, pressure, and time. It carries within it the essence of its origin: its land, its light, its stillness. Ancient, rooted, and quietly powerful.
Inspired by Ma Passion’s 25-year legacy of Never-Before-Never-Again gemstone carvings, Deshya redefines the very idea of jewellery for the modern collector. Infusing bold colour into every creation while offering a canvas for the age-old Indian art of gemstone carving
Beyond the Big Four cohort of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires lies a vast and unimaginable universe of coloured gemstones. Deshya taps into this expanse and extracts exquisite and exotic gemstones that are priceless.
Each collection features intricately carved gemstones, enhanced with masterfully cut and faceted stones in an array of colours. Through meticulous craftsmanship, these elements come together to create once-in-a-lifetime-
Meet the founder
Deshya’s founder, Rhea Poddar Loyalka’s cherished connection with gemstones has been long and enduring. Her unique childhood, being born into a family business of gemstone carvings, was replete with the allure of gemstones. She reminisces, when she was barely eight years old returning from school to spend the rest of her time entranced by the elaborate carvings at her parents’ gemstone exhibition. By then, she knew the names of almost 40 gemstones.
After completing her graduation from NYU where she studied Economics, Rhea started helping out with the carvings business during the pandemic. The beautiful world of gemstones attracted her enough to switch career paths. She decided to dive deep into the international gemstone industry and applied to the prestigious Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California – An experience that inculcated in her awe for the ancient geological processes that create gemstones and widened her knowledge about the industry itself. After its completion, she returned to India with a renewed appreciation for traditional craftsmanship.
Over the course of her work, her desire to blend the art of carving and the allure of jewellery gave birth to Deshya. It is a brand that makes the generational artistry of jewellery wearable and contemporary. Rhea is informed by beauty all around her – from nature, architecture, antiques or even the stunning palette of gemstones themselves. She imagines an aesthetic vocabulary removed from the clichéd showstoppers of emeralds and rubies alone, that dominate jewellery, especially in India. She brings her close association with artisans, her vast knowledge of the gemstone industry and her
cosmopolitan sensibility in design to this unique project that is Deshya.
