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.
A few years ago, my aunt had given me a set of photos in a ziplock bag – small, black-and-white prints, some gently curling at the corners, the ink on their backs now faint with time. At first, I enjoyed them as a playful gaze into my grandfather’s life across the world, but I’ve since begun to consider them as a testimony about time, reading them as I would a biography. Then, in 2023, after my grandfather’s death, I came to inherit two of the many cameras through which he once saw the world.
A cookbook that dates back to the year 1986 is filled with my maternal grandmother’s handwritten recipes. This diary was her companion throughout her life, but after she died in 2023, it became dearer to my mother. Now, in the age of ordering in and eating out, it has found new relevance amongst my mother and her sisters
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.
It is a different feeling to be holding this piece of fabric in my hand, almost like a portal allowing me to feel my grandfather’s presence. I had been carrying a piece of my land without knowing it, and seeing this object as a vessel – one that connects the immediate to the vast – has transformed my understanding of my ethnic identity.
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