Museum of Material Memory

A crowdsourced digital repository of material culture of the Indian subcontinent, tracing family history and social ethnography through heirlooms, collectibles and objects of antiquity

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From Budgerows to Battlefields: A history of the De family

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.

The Kadhai: A crucible for food and family

This Kadhai dates back to sometime around 1951, when it was gifted to my grandmother at her wedding. There weren’t many gifts to begin with, but this kadhai – bought from Lucknow’s old Chowk market by my great-grandmother’s youngest sister – stood out from among the sarees and shirt fabric pieces.

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"The idea that even the most quotidian of objects in our homes have important stories behind them is at the heart of the Museum of Material Memory"

"The idea that even the most quotidian of objects in our homes have important stories behind them is at the heart of the
Museum of Material Memory"

The Hindu

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