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Category: Jewellery

From the hills of Uttarakhand

This necklace, called a janjeer in Kumaon, weighs 350 gms and is nearly 70 years old. Presented originally to my grandmother during her wedding in the 1950s, it was passed down to my mother in 1979, and to me in 2011.

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The Holdali pendant from Lahore

The Holdali pendant from Lahore

The surface of the pendant is smooth, as is the case with Jade. This smoothness gives it an ethereal quality, and touching it, you do feel a sense of calm. You will see some textures and markings in the light, which have appeared over the years, as it was not stored properly. The gold etching on the pendant is delicate, and transports you to a different era.

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The jhanjhar to unite two families

In 1943, my grandmother and her younger sister got married to two brothers and subsequently, moved to Nairobi, Kenya with their husbands. In Gujarat, jhanjhar are considered to be an auspicious gift for new brides and it was on their wedding day, that my great-grandfather split this piece of jewellery between his two daughters, giving them each a single jhanjhar.

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The silver Challa

Before partition, my naani, Shanti Devi belonged to Lahore, now in Pakistan. She married my grandfather, Gyan Chand on 16th March 1950 in one of Karnal’s districts which is now Panipat. This is when she was given this keyring or ‘challa’ – as we call it in Punjabi – as a part of her wedding trousseau by her mother.

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The other side of the coin

The coin from 1906 was no mere coin, but rather a piece of my great-grandmother’s jewellery. It was a part of her tagdi, the silver belt she wore around her waist on top of her sari, which was eventually bequeathed to my grandmother. The story goes that so beautiful was her mother that when her future father-in-law came to see the young girl, he immediately liked her for his son, and presented her with a silver coin. This silver coin, to be exact.

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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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