This cabinet was originally commissioned by Bhaskar Vinayak Pandit or Aṇṇā, my great-great grandfather, some time towards the latter half of the 19th century. But the story of the cabinet is as migratory as the family that possessed it.
This cabinet was originally commissioned by Bhaskar Vinayak Pandit or Aṇṇā, my great-great grandfather, some time towards the latter half of the 19th century. But the story of the cabinet is as migratory as the family that possessed it.
This alna is a ‘wooden rack’, which measuring 72 inches by 39 inches. It’s not surprising that I had trouble finding a non-Bengali word for an alna, since as I later discovered that it is one of the few pieces of Bengali furniture that has a purely Bengali etymology
My great grandmother was born in a small village called Boala (now in Bangladesh). She possessed many aged utensils and other heirlooms, which were distributed among her four daughters as a part of their trousseaus during their weddings and some after her death.
Dating back to 1939, this coin box was a part of my grandmother’s wedding trousseau and of the two or three boxes she was given, this one survived the stretch of time and the tides of displacement. In case of a fall or dent, my grandmother would lose no time in taking it to the neighbourhood metalsmith for a quick fix. Sometimes she would ask me to accompany her, an excursion that I would enjoy every morsel of.
One such thing is a beautiful Persian carpet, which started its life in Qom where my husband’s grandparents bought it while on holiday more than 50 years ago. In the centre is a medallion, a tradition harking back to early 15th century Persian Manuscript covers. The medallion has four flowers coming off at each corner topped with a palm tree motif.