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.
A Karataa (କରାଟ, कराट) is a metal ball, shaped about 2inches in diameter, which was used by women at a time when the saree was worn without a blouse or petticoat, to fasten the first secure knot of the fabric, as one began draping it around their body.
The mortar and pestle now belong to me. Before me, they belonged to my mother. Before her, to her father. And before him, to his own father, a chemist in British-ruled India, born sometime in the late 1800s or early 1900s, paid little, remembered less, and gone in his sixties without leaving behind a single photograph.
Over years of use, the brushes have transformed alongside his practice: their bristles hardened by pigment, their handles stained by water and colour, carrying within them the memory of countless gestures. They are not merely tools of creation, but witnesses to the evolution of his journey.
My grandfather, Ramnik Lekhi’s Yashica 635 and Paillard-Bolex H16 cameras, which he bought during his time with CBS news, are now with me. It is with these cameras that he covered major events like the 1961 Liberation of Goa, the war with China in 1962, and Pakistan in 1965. He eventually lost his life in 1970 while covering the war in Cambodia at the young age of 40.
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