Museum of Material Memory

This is a poignant and bittersweet story of Uma Chatterjee (Mukherjee), who was my mother’s paternal aunt. One of her noteworthy and only remaining creations was a tablecloth, made for a school assignment around 1958 or 1959.

June 29, 2025

From the Musi River to the Bay of Bengal: the lasting ink of a wedding invitation card

Documents

There is a ruqqa, a wedding card tucked into the folds of a family album. It announces the union of my maternal grandparents – Ahmed Uddin and Rafi Unissa Begum, better known in our family as Pasha and Nafees, and dates back to February 12, 1961

June 15, 2025

The Hasla of Ilm Kaur

Jewellery

The Hasla is typically a torque-style necklace, thick and rigid, cast in silver and sitting close to the neck. It belonged to Ilm Kaur, my maternal great grandmother, who died sometime in the year 1949, succumbing to an unknown illness.

May 18, 2025

Cradling Generations; Creating Growth and Gaiety

Household

Look at how time flies, we are now headed to the hospital to bring Kasturi and her daughter back home, and the little one will use the bed her mother used. That’s the story of how the fourth generation of my family has begun putting this teak-wood cot to use.