My family know very little about the years my great-great-grandmother spent in India. This tea cosy is one of the only remnants of the four decades she lived away from England. I also had no idea that when the tea cosy came into my possession in 2019, that it would mark the start of an exciting period of research into my ancestors’ past.
I imagine my great-grandfather, Dr. R. C. De, standing in some provincial town in France during the First World War, choosing this gramophone in a shop filled with the shimmer of brass horns and the solemn promise of music, at a time when Europe was learning the sound of death.
Sitting sizeably, at 14 inches in length and 12 inches in breadth, this dark wood box could easily be mistaken for an ornately carved low side table. However, come closer and the magic inside is revealed. The vanity cum jewellery box from the early 1900s, sits pristinely preserved in the hands of its third owner.
My paternal was about thirteen (we can only estimate) when her sister and she got married to two brothers and moved away from Sukkar for the very first time. This brass dabbi was one of the many objects she and her sister brought along to their marital house in Larkana.
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.
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