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.
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.
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.
It was during the unprecedented turmoil and unrest of Partition that Babaji came into the possession of this beautiful Quran. From stories passed down, we know that he was given this by someone whose identity has been lost to time. But what is certain is that it was a symbol of faith amidst the tragic loss of lives and the pain of separation from one’s homeland and family.
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