This lehenga was given to my paternal grandmother as part of her wedding trousseau in 1930 and dates back to that time, most likely having been made in Varanasi. It accompanied her when she got married and moved to Ajmer, Rajasthan from her natal home in Indore. Many decades later, she presented this lehenga to my mother, who then brought it to her home city, Jodhpur.
During his days in Lahore, communal tension began rising in the wake of an imminent independence and possible partitioning of the land. To protect himself, Mian Baljit Singh bought this sword. But apart from that, I believe that it was also considered as a symbol of status and style.
When we first found them, I had no idea about the rug’s rich history, about the fact that they were gifts at such an important moment in my mother’s life. It was only when she began talking about them, caressing the rug’s threads, grazing her hands across the woven tapestry, that I realized that an object could mean so much to a person.
I come in and sit down on the cane chair next to her bed. She is singling out the larger silver coins and laying them in a line, chronologically. The collection begins from the year 1904 and ends at a coin from Independence, 1947.
These chaddars had been embroidered by Biji, my great grandmother, Ishar Kaur, for her own trousseau probably some time in the early 1920s. Often, women of those times would collect or make such items for their trousseau – handcrafted or embroidered cloth – which later could be used to make several smaller items like dupattas, rumaaley, tablecloths and bedsheets.
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