There is an object in my kitchen that does not belong only to me. It belongs to Nanna to her hands, her afternoons, her particular way of making everyone around her feel held. It is a Sarota: a betel-nut cutter, small and bladed, made of steel, worn smooth in the places where her fingers rested.
The 70 year old ashtray is made of brass, with a head resembling Mahakala, a deity revered in Buddhism and associated with wisdom, protection and the removal of obstacles, and limbs shaped around the belly, which doubles as the deposit area. Though not of great antiquity, it has been an important part of three generations.
As I wandered through the house with my great-grandmother, 55 years of age and experience separating us, I became almost childlike. I opened cupboards I had never thought to open before, pulled out forgotten objects, and asked endless questions. She would laugh, answer, and then another story would appear.
A Karataa (କରାଟ, कराट) is a metal ball, shaped about 2inches in diameter, which was used by women at a time when the saree was worn without a blouse or petticoat, to fasten the first secure knot of the fabric, as one began draping it around their body.
The mortar and pestle now belong to me. Before me, they belonged to my mother. Before her, to her father. And before him, to his own father, a chemist in British-ruled India, born sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s, paid little, remembered less, and gone in his sixties without leaving behind a single photograph.
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