It was during the unprecedented turmoil and unrest of Partition that Babaji came into the possession of this beautiful Quran. From stories passed down, we know that he was given this by someone whose identity has been lost to time. But what is certain is that it was a symbol of faith amidst the tragic loss of lives and the pain of separation from one’s homeland and family.
A silver kada, the protagonist of this story, isn’t just an ornament, it’s a reward given for the strength and determination shown by my mother from my great grandmother. But my journey to uncover the kada’s story has been nothing short of an adventure — a puzzle waiting to be solved. Its history, wrapped in silence and secrecy, felt like uncharted territory.
My grandmother’s Singer is the model 15K, and searching its serial number EE415743 located on the front side of the machine bed, tells me that it was manufactured on December 24, 1947 – making it nearly as old as independent India herself!
But the past came most alive whenever these coins were taken out. They were charged with stories that may not have emerged otherwise – each coin held a different tale, a different style of narration, the varied emotions giving those aged metal pieces a meaning.
Dr. Ramesh Chandra De, my maternal great-grandfather, was an army doctor in the First World War. What I gather from family members is that he was first posted in the Khirgi-Waziristan division for traineeship, and then sent to France for the rest of the War in the capacity of a surgeon. Sudhir Chandra De, my maternal grandfather, chose to follow in his father footsteps and at the age of 21 in the year 1940, found himself appointed as the official physician at the notorious Andaman Cellular Jail.
This pot or Sipri, as it is known in Sindhi, belonged to my great-great-grandmother, Chaturbai. She was married somewhere in the 1890s and the metal pot was given to her on the occasion of her wedding.
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