In 2016 Narendra Garwa was facing a desperate financial situation. His small book store in the village of Renwal, Rajasthan, was running at a loss.

With a family to support and little education, he searched the internet for other money-making ideas. He had some success growing vegetables in plastic bottles, but then came across a potentially more profitable crop - pearls.

"Rajasthan is a dry area with water issues. It was a challenge to think of growing pearls with limited water but I decided to try," he says.

Pearls are formed when a mollusc reacts to an irritant in its protective membrane. The mollusc deposits layers of aragonite and conchiolin, which together form nacre, also know as mother-of-pearl.

In the wild, pearl formation is rare so most pearls sold these days are from farmed molluscs, usually oysters or freshwater mussels.

To spur the mollusc to form a pearl, an irritant is artificially introduced into the creature. However, it is a delicate process and the mussels or oysters must be carefully handled, as Mr Garwa found.

"My first attempt was a disaster," he admits. Of the 500 mussels he purchased, only 35 survived.

Mr Garwa had travelled to Kerala to buy the mussels - a journey of 1,700 miles involving a 36-hour train journey. He also used his savings and borrowed money to come up with the 16,000 rupees (£170; $200) needed to buy the molluscs.

In addition, Mr Garwa had dug a 10ft by 10ft pound in his back garden to keep the creatures in.

Despite the setback, he did not give up. Instead, he took a five-day course in pearl farming.

"Growing an oyster is like bringing up a baby," he says.

"Monitoring the the water throughout the growth period is crucial to achieving high quality and volume of produce."

Now he has a 40ft by 50ft pond, which he treats with multivitamins and alum which maintains the correct pH level required for growth.

The survival rate of his mussels has risen from 30% to more than 70% since becoming more familiar with the process. Mr Garwa expects to produce around 3,000 pearls this year, which he can sell for between 400 and 900 rupees (£4-£10; $5-$11).