{"id":2721,"date":"2019-10-09T18:38:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T13:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?p=2721"},"modified":"2019-10-09T19:28:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T13:58:24","slug":"rajkumari-devis-independent-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/rajkumari-devis-independent-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Rajkumari Devi&#8217;s Independent India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>TEXT BY ANSHIKA SINGH<\/strong><br><strong>WITH INDU SINGH, G.N SINGH &amp; R.N SINGH <br>PHOTOGRAPHS BY AANCHAL MALHOTRA<br><em>Noida, Uttar Pradesh <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While I cannot remember when exactly in my childhood I first\nspotted this map of India, I know for certain that it would have been during\nany one of the winter afternoons I spent at my maternal grandparents\u2019 home in\nBhilai, Chattisgarh. Escaping Delhi\u2019s winter in December to spend New Year\u2019s\nwith my <em>nana <\/em>and <em>nani <\/em>was an event my sister and I looked forward to throughout the\nyear, which also formed our favourite memories of childhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I try and delve into the past, I recall first seeing the\nembroidered map along with other framed pictures on an alcove in the wall of\nwhat we used to call the \u2018<em>achaar ghar<\/em>\u2019,\nan entire room in my grandparents\u2019 house devoted entirely to pickles of all\nkinds &#8211;<em> achaars<\/em> and <em>murabbas<\/em> that my grandmother made with\nher own hands. Right from the ordinary <em>aam\n<\/em>or<em> tamatar ka achaar<\/em> to the\nlesser known and weirder ones like <em>Jimikand<\/em>\nor Yam, any possible pickle you could think of, she\u2019d have it in there. <\/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=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_E2651-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2727\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2727\" class=\"wp-image-2727\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_E2651-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_E2651-450x600.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>the embroidered map of India <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_E2648-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2728\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2728\" class=\"wp-image-2728\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_E2648-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_E2648-450x600.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>a photograph of Rajkumari Devi and her family <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as a child, I admired the map for its age and antiquity, but\nin truth, my younger self was drawn towards it only after realising that the\nmap within the frame was \u2018wrong\u2019. Or wrong, according to me. The number of\nstates included in the subcontinent were far less, and the names and areas\nof the states didn\u2019t correspond to the map of India I was familiar with.\nIncidentally, as I learnt later, when my mother was a child, she too, had\nteased my grandmother for the very same thing. But it was only when I took the\nmap to her and asked her about its contours, did she reveal its historical and\nmemorial significance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My <em>nani<\/em>, Rajkumari Devi, had embroidered this map for a school competition in the year 1948 when she was only 8 years old. According to what she remembered of the event, her school in Amhara, Bihar was visited by some British officials, who awarded her 10 <em>annas<\/em> for the extraordinary embroidery she had done, despite her young age. The map she had sewn \u2013 the very map placed before me now \u2013 was the map of an independent India, just as it would have looked immediately after the 1947 Partition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On either side of India, the territory of Pakistan can be seen sewn\nin a dark green colour, and west Pakistan marked as \u201c<em>Paschimi<\/em> <em>Pakistan<\/em>\u201d in\nblack letters. Some of the states embroidered include Rajasthan in red, marked as \u201cRaajputana\u201d; Kashmir, Madhya\nPradesh and rather extended \u2018Bambai\u2019 or Bombay in brown; Madras in royal blue,\nand the now known seven sister states sewn entirely\nas the Assam province in red. A faded mustard yellow represents Punjab, and the\nteal blue color marks the state of Bihar. Also included in\nthe neighbourhood are the island of \u2018Lanka\u2019 or\nSri Lanka in pale yellow, and Nepal in red. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 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=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2632-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2729\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2729\" class=\"wp-image-2729\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2632-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2632-450x600.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>Kashida embroidery on the main body <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2635-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2730\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2730\" class=\"wp-image-2730\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2635-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2635-450x600.jpg 450w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2635.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>Sindhi embroidery on the border <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2685-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2733\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2733\" class=\"wp-image-2733\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2685-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2685-450x600.jpg 450w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2685.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><figcaption>Rajkumari Devi&#8217;s watch, inherited by her granddaughter <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The embroidery done on fine white <em>suti<\/em> (cotton) cloth &#8211; as pointed out by my mother &#8211; exhibits four\ndifferent types of <em>kadhais,<\/em>\nembroidery &#8211; Kashida (kashmiri), Sindhi, Cross stitch, <em>(dasuti kadhai)<\/em> and Back stitch <em>(ulti\nbakhiya)<\/em>. While the border showcases pure Sindhi <em>kadhai<\/em>, the main body of the map is finely done in <em>Kashida<\/em> embroidery, and the names of\nstates have been sewn in devanagari script using <em>ulti bakhiya<\/em>. Outside the map are two flowers: one red\nand one yellow, and a butterfly that follows a\ngeometric pattern and can be easily identified as a cross stitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having had a very strict elder brother who did not allow her to go\nout and learn embroidery, <em>nani <\/em>would\noften devise a \u2018plan\u2019 with her mother and sisters to sneak out of the house for\na couple of hours, to visit a local woman who would teach her the threaded\ncraft. She was in fact so passionate about it that during one of her trips to a\nrelative\u2019s home in Patna, she came across another woman nearby who charged 50\npaisa to teach Sindhi <em>kadhai,<\/em> and\nended up spending all her savings on it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Nani ma<\/em> was only 10\nyears old when she was married to my <em>nanaji<\/em>,\nR.B Singh, who was 12 years old. A few years after their marriage in 1950, she\nmoved into his house in Ahiya Pur where they grew up together as best friends.\nThis map was carried from <em>nani\u2019s <\/em>house\nin Amhara to <em>nanaji\u2019s<\/em> house in\nAhiyapur as a part of her wedding trousseau. I suspect it existed as a rolled\nup piece of fabric back then, because it was only in their teenage years that <em>nani ma<\/em> asked <em>nanaji<\/em> to get the map framed. Since there were no framing shops in\nAhiya Pur, or in the nearby areas at the time, he took the map to Patna\nand&nbsp; have it framed. Nani\u2019s name- R. K\nDevi, and the place- Ahiya Pur, was added later to the map, probably after <em>nanaji\u2019s<\/em> suggestion. Since <em>nani ma<\/em> learned Sindhi kadhai around the\nsame time, I can also surmise that the border would have been\nadded just before he was to take it for framing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-4 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2717-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2731\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2731\" class=\"wp-image-2731\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2717-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2717-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2717-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/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\/10\/IMG_2676-1-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2735\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2735\" class=\"wp-image-2735\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2676-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2676-1-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_2676-1-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Anshika Singh and her mother, Indu Singh, studying the various embroidery <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember asking <em>nani <\/em>years\nago if I could take it back with me to Delhi, to which she immediately and\nquite politely refused, quoting the reason that as a piece of childhood\nembroidery, it didn\u2019t quite \u201cstand out\u201d as much as other pieces she had made\nlater on. She stressed that she wanted me to have something more \u201cvaluable\u201d. It\nwas rather ironic to hear her say that, for what I held in my hands was\ninvaluable. Of course, only later did I realize that it was a possessive heart\ntrying to coax its emotions into a polite explanation, to avoid parting with\nthe only material possession of her childhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After <em>nanaji\u2019s<\/em> death in\n2017, <em>nani maa\u2019s<\/em> health started\ndeteriorating and eventually she preferred her days to be solitary, remaining\nalmost always in her room. Knowing about the colorful life she had lived, it\ntook me by surprise to see her refusing things which she had once loved. The\nlast time I met her was in March 2018, when she was too weak to even sit on the\nbed by herself. Her voice had become feeble and muffled, and she was unable to\ntalk for more than a few seconds at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-5 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/TKUW4753-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"2736\" data-link=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?attachment_id=2736\" class=\"wp-image-2736\" srcset=\"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/TKUW4753-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/TKUW4753-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/TKUW4753-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>The author, Anshika Singh, with her grandmother&#8217;s hand-embroidered map <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember laying next to her and for the second time, asking if I could keep the embroidered map. <em>\u201cNani maa, vo map rakhlun mai? Jo aapne school mei banaya tha?\u201d <\/em>I asked. The years having dulled her zeal, she responded pragmatically, with, \u201c<em>Ekra kochi karbe, rakhle, <\/em>What will you do with it? Keep it if you want.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This 9.5 x 9.5 square inch of framed\nembroidery has lived through the latitudes and longitudes of displacement, and\ncontinues to stand the test of time- where the long ripped mounting board, and\nthe cracked and loose joints of the wooden frame refuse to fall apart,\ncomplementing the graceful aging of the white <em>suti<\/em> cloth into a pale yellow fabric with occasional dark spots\nspread across it. It\u2019s been a year since <em>nani\nma<\/em> passed away, and every glance at this map is a flashback of memories\nwhich are usually too overwhelming to recall all at once. For now, it sits on\nmy bookshelf wrapped carefully in bubble wrap to protect it from any possible\ndamage, but I hope that one day, I may muster whatever courage it takes to have\nit live unsheathed, displayed on my walls for the world to see <em>nani ma\u2019s<\/em> legacy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rajkumari Devi had embroidered this map for a school competition in the year 1948 when she was only 8 years old. Her school in Amhara, Bihar was visited by some British officials, who awarded her 10 annas for the extraordinary embroidery she had done, despite her young age. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[359,333,403,96,54,18,451,449,19,452,450],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721"}],"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=2721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2740,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions\/2740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}