The earliest memory I have of my grandmother’s face is her nose pin. In 1939, the year she got married, it travelled as a part of her wedding trousseau from Benaras, where she was born and raised, to the town of Bareilly. I like to imagine my great-grandmother stepping into one of the old jewellery shops frequented by the family, tucked in the narrow lanes of Man Mandir, to choose a diamond nose pin for her daughter.
The first time I encountered the locket was as a small child. My grandmother has preserved numerous photographs of her parents from their time in British Malaya and India, but one of the most prized possessions is this jade set in a gold locket that had been purchased from Malaya or Singapore by my great-grandfather.
My mother is the last remaining female descendant of my maternal family, but knows little about the pazaib. I often wonder, did Baebaejaan come to Karachi with the pair of these pazaib? Did she perhaps give one to another daughter? Or sell it to start a new life?
The Hasla is typically a torque-style necklace, thick and rigid, cast in silver and sitting close to the neck. It belonged to Ilm Kaur, my maternal great grandmother, who died sometime in the year 1949, succumbing to an unknown illness.
A silver kada, the protagonist of this story, isn’t just an ornament, it’s a reward given for the strength and determination shown by my mother from my great grandmother. But my journey to uncover the kada’s story has been nothing short of an adventure — a puzzle waiting to be solved. Its history, wrapped in silence and secrecy, felt like uncharted territory.
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