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.
But the past came most alive whenever these coins were taken out. They were charged with stories that may not have emerged otherwise – each coin held a different tale, a different style of narration, the varied emotions giving those aged metal pieces a meaning.
Born in Saharanpur in 1901, amma was named Alice David at birth. It is difficult to say if she was an Anglo-Indian, but her mother, Angelica, had travelled from Germany to work for the East India Company.
An ikophot is a handheld meter made in the 1950’s by Zeiss Ikon in Stuttgart, Germany. My grandfather Shyamal Kumar Majumdar probably procured this in the 1960s from Fancy Market, Kidderpore, Kolkata. It has a bubble glass at the front that takes in the light, which then drives the meter needle. It is covered by a little black lid which can be removed while using the device.
Throughout history, pachisi was the ‘poor man’s chaupar’. But to my grandmother, whose childhood pachisi grids were scribbled in chalk, my grandfather’s novelty board — like rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and pearls sewn together — seemed no less regal. “She embroidered each bead herself,” she tells me, looking back at the outbursts, meltdowns, and amusement this game brought to my grandparents’ living room 60 years ago. “I guess she’d be your great-great-grandmother”.
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