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It’s 2013, and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra’s focus is monopolised by her thesis project at Concordia University, Montréal. To the casual bystander, her mission might appear simple: document the material objects carried by refugees across the border during the partition of 1947. There is a multi-hued maang tikka, once destined to be sold to make ends meet. Today, each luminescent stone glistens with the wistful yearning to share the unspoken stories it holds. There are family utensils and assorted kitchenware—souvenirs from life in a makeshift refugee camp. Look closer, and you might just discern the initials that were once lovingly engraved in before the metals were ravaged by the passage of time. A foldable pocket knife, forged from a larger talwar, now sits idly—its rusted blade belying the days when it was handed to young women as an essential apparatus for self-defence.
Objecthood
Slowly, handwritten letters and photo albums united with prized souvenirs to evolve into a living, breathing archive of its own. As she looked at the poignance that these everyday items ferried on their fragile shoulders, Malhotra knew her work couldn’t stop there. Her findings would eventually evolve into a book, Remnants of a Separation, that earned several accolades upon its release in 2019.
What was compelling, though, was the intergenerational impact that she discovered the partition still holds. It wasn’t long before younger members started sitting in on her interviews, asking and probing, answering and absorbing. Memories were excavated, and they lingered on in the air—too emotionally laden to be boxed back into an almirah.
From there, the first stirrings of an idea took form. “What would an organic, crowd-sourced archive of material culture look like? One where the narration of family history could be a multi-generational exercise?” she wondered. In late 2016, she took her musings to social impact consultant Navdha Malhotra. Together, they concluded that a digital archive would make it more accessible. “We also agreed to move beyond the time frame of partition to include objects from varying geographies and communities,” adds Navdha Malhotra. After almost a year of conceptualising the archive, the Museum of Material Memory took shape in September 2017.
The duo’s work comes at a time when museums find themselves in the throes of an identity crisis. Accusations of obsolescence in an increasingly digital world are frequently lobbed by naysayers. Loyalists, meanwhile, continue to cling on to museums as the last fortresses of cultural veracity. Aanchal and Navdha Malhotra managed to strike a compromise by modelling the Museum of Material Memory as a digital storehouse on Instagram that would allow viewers to ‘experience’ an object the same way they would in a physical museum or gallery. “The democratic nature of social media space is the driving force behind so many unheard histories recently gaining due importance. The immediate shareability also augments our borderless approach. An object in a home in Pakistan can be accessed across homes in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and the larger diaspora—this almost always leads to more stories being unearthed,” Aanchal Malhotra shares.
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Even as the breadth of submissions started expanding organically over time, the co-founders found themselves pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of observations in the comments section. A graduation sari from Kerala they recently posted about has led to an email from a reader in Pakistan who was struck by the identical saris she had inherited. “We have also had extended family reunions in our comments and emails, where someone from one part of the world has seen a story that feels familiar, only to realise that their families are distantly related,” smiles Navdha Malhotra.
Looking ahead, the Malhotra duo is toying with the idea of physical popups. “Since the objects we feature are personal belongings with significant emotional and nostalgic value, taking them away has never been our intention. However, we’d love to organise interactive events to document people’s lives and incredibly nuanced histories,” they share. But for the moment, they’re honed in on capturing the nuances that are often overlooked in written records. Despite the nonverbal nature of their archive— dominated by textiles, utensils and household items—they remain conscious of the role these items play as repositories of culture and history. “As South Asian families, we may hold on to items, but not necessarily preserve or care for them—or even realise the history embedded in them. Through the intimate act of storytelling, we hope to unveil not just the personal story of the object and its owner, but a generational narrative spanning the traditions, cultures, customs, habits and history of the diverse subcontinent,” Anchal Malhotra says.
Read the full story on ELLE India’s new issue, or download your digital copy via Magzter.