One of my most prized possessions is a battered leather wallet that used to belong to my late grandfather.
It is utterly unremarkable; and yet it reminds me of a man who was anything but. He ran away from his village in Dharmapuri as a teenager, fought in WWII and returned home to an independent India.
The idea that even the most quotidian of objects in our homes have important stories behind them is at the heart of the Museum of Material Memory. The online project curates stories from across the subcontinent about material possessions passed down through the generations.
“From the mountainous Multan to the sultry Delhi, it has locked the residences of my grandfather and with it, it has kept safe the stories of each of his homes.”
“The museum was born from my personal research on objects that migrated across the border during Partition,” says Aanchal Malhotra, an oral historian and author of Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory , who started the museum along with Navdha Malhotra, a ceramic artist who works in digital communications.
During her research, Aanchal encountered dozens of objects that she couldn’t include in the book, but also couldn’t ignore.
By looking at the overlooked, the museum reveals a different side to the material history of the subcontinent; a personal and, arguably, more relatable side.
A sari evokes the joyous memory of a wedding but also becomes the link between three generations of women. A clock is less a marker of the present and more a link to the past — the memory of migration, of struggling to find a foothold in a foreign country.
Steps in time “I sat with my father, holding this clock in my hand, and he told me the story of how Dadi travelled to London alone, with a baby in tow, and not knowing a sentence of the English language.”
Events on the subcontinental scale, such as Partition, are part of these narratives, but the focus always inspires questions at the personal level: how did my grandparents cope? How significant were these mundane objects to lives sundered as the country was hacked apart?
The museum asks people to submit objects that are significant to them, and also to write about them.
The purpose is twofold — it encourages people to talk to their families and learn more about their history, and it also ensures that the stories remain their own, presented in their voice. “The original purpose was that people would contribute to the archive, thereby ensuring that memorialisation was happening in an active way in every household,” explains Aanchal.
It’s clearly worked. “People have begun talking about their ‘things’ with members of their family and other histories have emerged alongside them,” says Navdha.
Good memories, bad memories
Here, a man writes about how his curiosity about a box of military medals, issued during the final days of the Raj, and a solemn portrait in his grandmother’s living room, led him to learn about his grandfather’s life as a soldier during WWII, and gain a deeper understanding how his decisions bettered the lives of his children and grandchildren.
Not all memories associated with the objects are positive. For one man, finding a dusty 1970s Brother 760 TR typewriter brought back memories of his father abusing and degrading his mother, an actress. But it also reminded him of her strength and determination to learn to use the typewriter and provide for her family through words — a craft that he, a writer, would later gain a deep appreciation for.
Being entirely online has helped the project in many ways — there is unlimited space for stories and personal accounts and images. But it also has its fair share of challenges. “We are constantly looking for interesting and rare objects to be able to know their histories, we search through hashtags on Instagram and put the word out as much as we can. At present, we are using our personal networks — friends, family, colleagues and social media — to spread the word and invite contributions,” the founders say.
Aanchal hopes that decades later, people can look back to the museum and say, “these were the things people of the subcontinent used in this time, or these are the clothes they wore, these were the kitchen utensils and metals they preferred, these were the vocations they were part of and these were the traditions they celebrated.”
Memory can be a tricky thing, especially when it intersects with nostalgia, heritage, and tradition.
As the French historian Pierre Nora once wrote, sites of memory — exhibitions, memorials, even what’s presented in our educational textbooks — are designed to enforce a collective identity or a shared past.
And the process of constructing a larger identity tends to obscure personal narratives.
The Museum of Material Memory reminds us of a rich shared history across the subcontinent, with differences and commonalities. But it also reminds us that each of us, our families and our homes, are brimming with stories.
Aditya Iyer is a London-based freelancer who writes on politics, art, and society.
