Aanchal Malhotra, Author at Museum of Material Memory

I discovered this postcard quite unexpectedly in our family home in Digboi, Assam. More than just a piece of paper, it felt like a doorway into a moment from sixty years ago. Finding it made me curious about a chapter of my grandparent’s lives that I had never witnessed — a time when they lived apart, Babaji in London and Biji in Phagwara. I found myself wondering what he had written to her, how long she had waited for news from him, and what she must have felt when this postcard finally arrived.

September 13, 2026

Nanihal: Stories from Sardarshahar

Heirlooms

As I wandered through the house with my great-grandmother, 55 years of age and experience separating us, I became almost childlike. I opened cupboards I had never thought to open before, pulled out forgotten objects, and asked endless questions. She would laugh, answer, and then another story would appear.

September 6, 2026

The Nose Pin

Jewellery

The earliest memory I have of my grandmother’s face is her nose pin. In 1939, the year she got married, it travelled as a part of her wedding trousseau from Benaras, where she was born and raised, to the town of Bareilly. I like to imagine my great-grandmother stepping into one of the old jewellery shops frequented by the family, tucked in the narrow lanes of Man Mandir, to choose a diamond nose pin for her daughter.

August 30, 2026

My Grandmother’s Karataa

Heirlooms / Textiles

A Karataa (କରାଟ, कराट) is a metal ball, shaped about 2inches in diameter, which was used by women at a time when the saree was worn without a blouse or petticoat, to fasten the first secure knot of the fabric, as one began draping it around their body.

August 12, 2026

Cameras, Canvas and Battlegrounds

Heirlooms / Photographs

My grandfather, Ramnik Lekhi’s Yashica 635 and Paillard-Bolex H16 cameras, which he bought during his time with CBS news, are now with me. It is with these cameras that he covered major events like the 1961 Liberation of Goa, the war with China in 1962, and Pakistan in 1965. He eventually lost his life in 1970 while covering the war in Cambodia at the young age of 40.

August 9, 2026

Meeting Mahboob Morshed Through His Beloved

Documents / Heirlooms

I know my grandfather, Mahboob, only through remnants, but perhaps remnants are not small things. A ring, a letter, a postcard, a photograph: each carries a version of him, and each is made more alive by the stories my grandmother, his Dilruba has attached to it.

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