Heirlooms Archives - Museum of Material Memory

A few years ago, my aunt had given me a set of photos in a ziplock bag – small, black-and-white prints, some gently curling at the corners, the ink on their backs now faint with time. At first, I enjoyed them as a playful gaze into my grandfather’s life across the world, but I’ve since begun to consider them as a testimony about time, reading them as I would a biography. Then, in 2023, after my grandfather’s death, I came to inherit two of the many cameras through which he once saw the world.

October 26, 2025

From My Grandmother’s Hands – a recipe book from 1986

Heirlooms

A cookbook that dates back to the year 1986 is filled with my maternal grandmother’s handwritten recipes. This diary was her companion throughout her life, but after she died in 2023, it became dearer to my mother. Now, in the age of ordering in and eating out, it has found new relevance amongst my mother and her sisters

October 12, 2025

The brass box from Sushi’s childhood

Heirlooms / Household

The box was gifted to 10 year old Sushi by my grandfather Digambar Singh Karki in 1955. The small box made of brass or peetal has a latch, circular lid and a curved handle.

August 25, 2025

Through His Lens: S.M Faruque’s Film camera

Heirlooms / Household

A camera sits on my bookshelf- heavy, leather-bound and silent for decades. Once owned by my great-grandfather, S.M Faruque- a man I never knew. Not his voice, nor his demeanor, nor the quiet rituals of his day. And yet, I have come to see fragments of the world as he once did; through the twin lenses of his Rolleiflex camera.

July 6, 2025

Sweet Dreams: The short story of a tablecloth

Heirlooms

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.

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