{"id":2501,"date":"2019-06-22T12:50:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T07:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?p=2501"},"modified":"2019-06-22T12:51:39","modified_gmt":"2019-06-22T07:21:39","slug":"kalabatis-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/kalabatis-treasure\/","title":{"rendered":"Kalabati&#8217;s Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>TEXT &amp; PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICKEY SUMAN <br><em>Bangalore, India <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the myriad memories I have of my\ngrandmother, there are a few that remain as vivid as a freshly painted picture.\nMy grandmother, Kalabati Devi, seldom smiled. She was not as softhearted or\nindulgent as women of her times usually were. Widowed at a young age, all the\nlegacy she was left behind by my landowner grandfather was their six little\nchildren\u2014the eldest, my father, a little over ten; my two aunts and two uncles;\nand, my youngest uncle still in her womb \u2014 and acres of farmland. Fate and\ncircumstances made her a formidable woman, or perhaps she had always been the\nkind who rationed her emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was a little girl, I would often find her negotiating with farmers and beady-eyed shareholders during hot summer afternoons, keeping a count of the sacks of harvest on the dusty verandah. Behind this steely demeanor, she quietly enjoyed a weakness or two, mainly fish and <em>paan<\/em>. No weekend would go by when she would not buy the freshest catch from the village pond and butcher it herself into painstakingly neat cuts which would then be coated with a pungent paste of coarsely-ground mustard and turmeric and shallow fried till golden. I can vividly recall her countenance as she would sit hunched on the wooden board of a curved chopping blade, her eyebrows knotted in a deep, meditative concentration. It was a Sunday ritual I loved to watch and partake in. Later, after a hearty lunch of rice and fish curry, she would give me a one-rupee coin from her little brass coin box that she kept tied in the secured folds of her crisp, white cotton sari\u2014it was my reward for not interfering in her task. This beautiful box, since then, had often fascinated me.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"735\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/3-1024x735.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2520\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2520\" class=\"wp-image-2520\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/3-1024x735.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/3-600x430.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/3-768x551.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"632\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/4-1-1024x632.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2522\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2522\" class=\"wp-image-2522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/4-1-1024x632.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/4-1-600x370.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/4-1-768x474.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Designed from intricate patterns of filigreed brass, the coin box or <em>karata<\/em>, as it is called in Odia, is a fine craftsmanship of antique <em>dhokra<\/em> work\u2014an age-old art that finds its home amongst the Damar tribe of Odisha and West Bengal. Traditional metalsmiths for generations, the Damars use the low-wax casting technique to create figurines and utility objects that embody primitive style and tribal motifs from their everyday life. The <em>karata<\/em> served the purpose of a daily-use wallet for women back in my grandmother\u2019s times. About the size of a regular plum, the box measures 4 cms in length and 3 cms in breadth approximately. Like an evenly cut fruit in the middle, it opens into two neat halves of hollow insides that were originally coated with clay but over the years, have been lined with thick, glossy magazine paper to give it the durability it needed to hold coins. Despite being more than eight decades old, except for some perforation along the rim, the metalwork is still sturdy and functional. Its colour of beaten gold intact, one can still get the overpowering smell of musty, antiquated metal off its surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Born in\n1924, near Angul, now a major industrial town in Central Odisha, my grandmother\nwas a great storyteller and would often narrate mesmerizing accounts of her\nadolescence that was lived amidst lush green, tiger-infested jungles by the\nbanks of the river Mahanadi. She would recall how\nGandhiji, on his <em>padyatra<\/em> to Puri in\n1934, had made a pitstop at our hometown and how all the men and women from the\nvillage had marched to the district bungalow to catch a glimpse of the great\nman. Gradually, her memory would shift to her wedding day when she would\nreminisce the details of her enviable dowry. \u201cThe brassware in particular was\nthe talk of the village for days after the wedding\u201d, she would claim, her\notherwise stoic face beaming with a mellow pride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sunset-by-the-village-pond-the-landscape-around-my-grandmothers-village-600x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2518\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sunset-by-the-village-pond-the-landscape-around-my-grandmothers-village-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sunset-by-the-village-pond-the-landscape-around-my-grandmothers-village-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/sunset-by-the-village-pond-the-landscape-around-my-grandmothers-village.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption>a sunset by the village pond, the landscape around Kalabati&#8217;s village near Angul, Odisha<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Dating back to 1939, this coin box was a part of my grandmother\u2019s wedding trousseau and of the two or three boxes she was given, this one survived the stretch of time and the tides of displacement. In case of a fall or dent, my grandmother would lose no time in taking it to the neighbourhood metalsmith for a quick fix. Sometimes she would ask me to accompany her, an excursion that I would enjoy every morsel of. Back then, I did not understand the toils and precision of craftsmanship that went into the making of such a precious object. Neither did I understand my grandmother\u2019s sentimentality behind preserving it. But I do remember how visibly uneasy she would be if anyone else so much as touched it. Perhaps it was the only material remnant of simpler times she possessed, when she was not yet riddled with a life of hardship.  <br><br>Over the years, like most things of childhood and in the haste of growing up and building a world of my own, the <em>karata<\/em> too was gradually forgotten. What remained was a sense of blurry nostalgia surrounding it. That is, until I went home last year. Quite miraculously, after eighteen years of my grandmother\u2019s death and an era of oblivion, the box found me. My youngest aunt gave it to me, saying, \u201cYou are the only one after Ma who valued this box so much. Keep it, this belongs with you.\u201d What could I say, except that my heart was full and much more. And so, the box travelled with me all the way to London and remained there for a while before we moved back to Bangalore earlier this year. It was a journey of more than one kind and maybe for a flicker of a second, I could see my grandmother smiling her reserved, reluctant smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kalabati-with-all-her-four-sons-1998.-First-one-from-the-right-is-the-authors-father-Dibakar-1024x608.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2521\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2521\" class=\"wp-image-2521\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kalabati-with-all-her-four-sons-1998.-First-one-from-the-right-is-the-authors-father-Dibakar-1024x608.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kalabati-with-all-her-four-sons-1998.-First-one-from-the-right-is-the-authors-father-Dibakar-600x357.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kalabati-with-all-her-four-sons-1998.-First-one-from-the-right-is-the-authors-father-Dibakar-768x456.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Kalabati-with-all-her-four-sons-1998.-First-one-from-the-right-is-the-authors-father-Dibakar.jpg 1205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Kalabati with all her four sons, 1998. First one from the right is the author&#8217;s father, Dibakar<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/6-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2523\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2523\" class=\"wp-image-2523\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/6-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/6-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/6-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>the karata box which was a part of Kalabati&#8217;s wedding trousseau<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dating back to 1939, this coin box was a part of my grandmother\u2019s wedding trousseau and of the two or three boxes she was given, this one survived the stretch of time and the tides of displacement. In case of a fall or dent, my grandmother would lose no time in taking it to the neighbourhood metalsmith for a quick fix. Sometimes she would ask me to accompany her, an excursion that I would enjoy every morsel of. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,9],"tags":[412,300,410,54,414,106,14,18,409,341,134,413],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2530,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions\/2530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}