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Category: Household Items

Utensils From A Pujo, Alive in Memories

Always having been a practical woman, Didimoni read the situation [in what was now East Pakistan] and slowly began to realize that they wouldn’t be able to stay in Khurshimul forever. So she decided to begin transporting some valuables to Kolkata, to my grandfather. Making several trips, Didimoni singlehandedly began taking these pujo utensils from Khurshimul to Kolkata.

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Sweet Imprints

During the 1947 Partition, Thaakuma had to make her journey across the border to Kolkata alone. While she couldn’t carry much, a few Chhaanch made this perilous journey with her. Though they may be a bit rough around the edges due to the passage of time, they are still in a pristine condition to leave their mark.

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The Clock from Sindh

This clock became a witness for the life and times of the Malkani family when it was acquired by them in 1945. Its time-keeping began in Karachi, Sindh (present-day Pakistan) where my grandfather, Arjun Malkani, fifth among his ten siblings, lived.

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The Lace Crimper from Rajasthan

This lace-crimper belonged to Dadi’s grandmother, Ganpatraiji who lived in the Taparia family home in Rajasthan. The origins of the lace-crimper are unknown, and the machine holds no markings of its maker. Dadi estimates that like most other Marwari households of the region, this machine would have been acquired for the family at the nearest large town, made by local blacksmiths in the early 1900’s or earlier.

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The Silver Kangri

In 1894, my great-grandfather married my great-grandmother, Radhika Sinha, originally from Lahore, and in the early 1900s, they went on a trip to Kashmir. It was here that they bought several ornate items that have built this coveted heirloom collection, including the silver Kangri engraved with the Kashmiri chinar.

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About

The Museum of Material Memory is a digital repository of material culture of the Indian subcontinent, tracing family history and social ethnography through heirlooms, collectibles and objects of antiquity.

Through storytelling, each post on the Archive reveals not just a history of objects and the people they belong to, but also unfolds generational narratives about the tradition, culture, customs, conventions, habits, language, society, geography and history of the vast and diverse subcontinent.


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