I told Daddyji that we found something that looked like a family tree. He unfolded it, leaned forward, adjusted his glasses, and read aloud in his soft Punjabi-inflected voice: “Shajara-e-Nasab, Bahl Baradari, Qasba Urmar, Zilla Hoshiarpur.” The words came easily to him, as though they lived somewhere familiar in his mouth.
I have seen the wooden crocodile crouched under my mother’s cousin’s shelf for several years now. This Burmese crocodile can be traced back to Sarat Chandra Chatterjee – the renowned literary figure whose contributions to Bengali literature have been immense, most notably Devdas – who spent years living in Burma, working as a clerk.
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.
In 2022, we chanced upon a yellowing leaf of paper from the past, buried deep in a drawer among other documents. This was my great-grandfather, Bidhu Bhushan Sarkar’s election pamphlet from the first State Legislative Assembly Elections held in 1952 in West Bengal, independent India.
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?
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