MEMORABILIA - Inheritance of Hands

We’re delighted to call an end to 2025 and start the new one with y’all through our Call for Submissions, ‘The Inheritance of Hands: Documenting Living History’.

Our family history isn’t just found in dusty boxes or census records; it is carried in our bodies. It lives in the way we hold a needle, the way we knead dough, the way we grip a pen, or the way we play a chord. These are gestures of continuity; skills and habits passed down through touch, observation, and love. To celebrate this continuity, we are looking for your stories. We want to see those 'gestures of continuity'—the skills and habits passed down through generations. Pair a photo of an ancestor at work (or a piece of their handiwork) with a photo of you keeping that same motion alive today. As a reflection of our beliefs, this sets a foundation of continuity and purpose.

How to join:

The Imagery: Send us a 'then and now' look. Pair a photo of an ancestor at work (or a piece of their handiwork) with a photo of you keeping that same motion alive today. For example, one photo showing your grandmother’s sewn tablecloth, and another one showing you stitching something.

The Story: In 150–300 words, tell us about the memory of this skill and the story behind it. You may use these prompts to guide you:

• What is the specific skill or gesture being shown? Why is it special?

• Who taught you? Was it a formal lesson, or did you learn by quiet observation?

• How do you feel when you perform this task today?

• What is one sensory detail (a sound, a smell, a texture) that connects you to them in this moment?

The goal of this is to create a visual and written map of the physical links between those who came before us and ourselves. By documenting these ordinary gestures, we validate the quiet, beautiful parts of our history. You aren't starting from scratch; you are standing on generations of wisdom.

Features

স্মরণিকা

শীতের ছুটির দুপুর আসলে সেপিয়া রঙের অ্যালবামে আলো ফেলার সময়। ছাদে বসে রোদ পোহাতে পোহাতে মন কখন যেন ফেলে আসা দিনগুলোর অলিগলির আনাচে কানাচে হলুদ হয়ে যাওয়া থেমে থাকা সময়টায় একটু ঘুরে আসতে চায়। আমাদের প্রিয় দিদা অমৃতলোকে চলে গেছেন প্রায় বছর দশ বারো আগে। দিদার সঙ্গে জড়িয়ে থাকা সময়টা আজ ও বড়ো প্রিয় এবং ব্যক্তিগত। আমাদের অসম্ভব গুণী দিদার হাতের কিছু কাজ সংরক্ষণ করে রেখেছেন আমার মা। যদিও বেশিরভাগই কালের গর্ভে হারিয়ে গেছে। আমাদের মা মানুষটিও দিদার সব গুণেই গুণী ..ওই যাকে বলে "Like mother, like daughter”. তাঁর হাতের জাদু তিনি সবখানেতেই রেখেছেন..তা সে পুরনো ফেলে দেওয়া ফুলদানিকে আশ্চর্য কল্কায় রঙেরূপে সাজিয়ে তোলাই হোক বা কুরুশের আসন বোনাই হোক বা আম্মার (পড়ুন ঠাম্মার) উপহার দেওয়া বাংলাদেশী সিল্ক শাড়িতে কাঁথার ফোঁড় ই হোক।

এদিকে আমি কোলাজের কাজ শিখেছিলাম ইশকুলে দিদিমণির হবার ট্রেনিং নেবার সময়। দুটি কাজই ইশকুলে গরমের ছুটির অবসর যাপনের স্মৃতি।

যাই হোক আজকের স্মৃতি-ছবির গপ্পো এবার শেষ করব মনে রাখার মতো একটি কথায়...

"We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.”

ঈশিতা মান্না

৩১.১২.২০২৫

Inheritance of Sweetness

My thamma's hands were blessed with the art of making sweets. She made elaborate sweetmeats all year round, but especially during the festivities like Durga Puja and Poush Sankranti, the house smelled divine. It all looked so simple, mashing the curdled milk, preparing sugar syrup, rolling out the flour dough. It was only after I had dipped my hands in the process that I learnt just how technical it is, how much finesse one needed to train for. She instructed quietly, focusing more on the stories she associated with the dishes- how to customise what and for whom, coincidences that occurred while frying the sweets some particular year, and so on. I always observed her hands, expertly and tenderly committed to the process while her eyes were elsewhere, lips minding the errands of the day. She left her sweet moulds for posterity, perhaps knowing how much I'd love the heirlooms. It is never the same when I make them though! The texture feels grainier, the syrup less sweet, and the taste distinctly devoid of her secret ingredients of patience and love. I end up sorely missing her fingers that never measured out the salt yet mixed in the perfect amount, the folds in the dough that rolled back like waves, and the loving indulgence with which she fed us the first sample. Yet, every time the smell of refined oil hits my nose, I go back to being the little girl who would huddle by her thamma while she prepared little treats that tasted like manna dew.

The images (above):

The moulds I inherited from my thamma.

2. Batch of thamma's special dish 'mohonpuri', ready to be fried (prepared by me).

3. Assortment of sweets made using the moulds. (prepared by me).

: Sunandini Mukherjee

The Story of Windows

Every window has a different story. It started with this little thought in the late zamindar era by Makhom Sundari Devi of Andul Rajbari. She got different windows painted after every travel. According to her, a window is not just a part of the architecture; it tells about the people living in it. What was odd to others was an intellectual escape for her. After her, my maternal great-grandfather, Dhananjay Kumar Mitra, had taken up the same hobby. Later, it was passed down to my grandfather, Kartick Chandra Bose, who also collected cutouts from different magazines and newspapers. From 1983, my maternal aunt, Sima Mitra, continued the pattern. She used to focus more on the style and fine details of windows. It started giving an impression that this interest is a generational inheritance. Later, I found this equally amusing and took it up as well. It is fascinating to think that just a perspective passed down and remained over generations. Windows narrate the tales of the household that aren't loudly discussed and give us the freedom to frame it as a reminder that every similar thing doesn't have to have the same reason to be the way it is. It provokes us to push the boundary of thought and generalization. They say that eyes are windows of the soul. True, but my ancestry has proved that windows can prominently be the eyes of the souls living in that house, and eyes speak louder than words.

: Sampurna

Endurance as a Way of Life

From an almost intellectual standpoint, habits are not consciously adopted so much as they are absorbed, quietly transferred through observation, repetition, and the unspoken rules that govern a household. That is how I inherited my habit of silent continuity, or, as I like to call it, "put your head down and push through," from my parents, not through advice or moral lessons, but through watching lives that refused to pause, even when pausing would have been understandable. I grew up observing a rhythm in which showing up mattered more than explaining pain, where responsibility was honoured above emotional visibility, and where life moved forward with a kind of disciplined inevitability. That rhythm settled into me slowly, becoming instinct rather than choice. Over time, it was an engraved learning that endurance was normal, that resilience was not something you celebrated but something you practised daily, and that breaking down was a luxury reserved for moments that never quite arrived.

Now this habit lives inside my daily life like an internal engine that never fully switches off, rather refuses to. I wake up and step into the day regardless of how heavy my mind feels, regardless of the quiet ache that sometimes sits in my chest. I perform, adapt, and deliver at work, in relationships, in moments of pressure, carrying myself with composure even when my inner world feels disordered and exhausted. I’d be so bold as to say that I've sort of become skilled at compartmentalizing emotion, at pushing discomfort to the background, at telling myself that functionality is enough. There’s a certain character that comes with this, which is that people see reliability, steadiness, and control. What they don’t see is the emotional math happening constantly in my head, the calculations about how much I can endure before I allow myself to rest, how much pain can be postponed without spilling over. This also brings into light at times the very lack of emotions I show. It is not that I don't feel any; it's just that it comes as a delayed response rather than something instant.

This continuity has shaped the way I process grief, stress, and even joy. Loss didn't stop me; it follows me. Fatigue doesn’t halt me, it walks beside me. I’ve learned how to keep moving while carrying weight that has no obvious outlet, how to exist in a state of quiet perseverance that feels both powerful and isolating. There are moments when I admire this inheritance, when I recognize it as strength forged through example. And then there are moments when it feels like a burden, when I realize how rarely I give myself permission to pause, to soften, to unravel without guilt. Still, this habit persists, deeply rooted and unapologetic. It is my parents’ survival etched into my behavior, their unbroken motion echoing through my own. And so I continue, day after day not because life is easy, not because I am untouched by emotion, but because somewhere deep within me, continuity feels like respect, like identity, like the only way I know how to exist.

: Aritra Debgupta

Google Sites

Report abuse