Timekeepers of the Ordinary

New Indian Express

24-07-2025

A few days ago, I found myself in Jaipur, taking a quiet break from the predictable rhythms of daily life. Amid the swirl of tourists and the enduring elegance of Hawa Mahal, I had just one deliberate plan: to seek out the elderly gentleman with the vintage box camera and sit for a photograph.
You have to look closely. Just off the main thoroughfare, beneath a modest parasol, sits a large wooden camera that appears more like a cinematic relic than a functional tool. It belongs to another time, as does the man who uses it. Surinder ji, with his weathered hands and gentle demeanour, has spent decades in this spot. He learnt the craft from his grandfather, who once captured portraits at this very location.
'We are very popular on Instagram, ma'am,' said a younger man beside him, smiling confidently. His attention seemed more attuned to the language of algorithms than to the quiet ritual of analogue photography. We soon gathered that he was Surinder ji's son, and likely his apprentice. His first attempt at our portrait was unsuccessful, and there was a quiet disappointment in the older man's expression—perhaps a small gesture of concern for the patience this practice demands, and how quickly it may be fading.
The process itself feels almost sacred in today's context. You sit still. You wait. The lens is uncapped for a few silent seconds. Then the film is treated with chemicals in a portable darkroom, and the image slowly emerges, at first spectral, then unmistakably real. A second exposure is made onto photographic paper. There are no retakes, no adjustments, no filters. Only light, time and intention.
It takes about 20 minutes, long enough for the experience to feel deliberate, reflective even. I was struck by how vulnerable the act felt—offering your likeness to someone else's gaze, trusting their instinct to capture you as you are, or perhaps as they see you. In a world where every image is instantly available, endlessly adjustable and often disposable, this felt like a quiet act of surrender.
That moment stayed with me—not only as nostalgia, but as an entry point into a broader contemplation. It made me think about the fragility of memory, the endurance of tradition, and the quiet labour of those who continue to carry it forward. Cities like Jaipur and Delhi are filled with such reminders, often tucked away in lanes and courtyards, easily overlooked in our rush to the new.
I was reminded of this again when I revisited the Museum of Material Memory, a digital archive of material culture founded by Delhi-based author Aanchal Malhotra and Navdha Malhotra in 2017. The project traces stories of people and places through everyday objects, and the relationships built around them across generations.
It made me reflect on the artefacts in my own home. One in particular—a hand-embroidered phulkari bagh chadar made in khaddar by my great-grandmother—has come to symbolise something much larger than itself. It is not merely an heirloom, but a narrative woven with care, a piece of textile that gestures to the women who came before me and the worlds they inhabited. I never met her, yet the fabric feels like a conversation with someone who shaped my lineage.
'One of the things that we do at the archive is to make people move beyond the novelty of nostalgia and write about these objects,' Aanchal Malhotra told me. 'To make them think about what the object means to them, what it may have meant to the person it belonged to. And of course, how the usage of the object changes, right? This often results in cultivating a relationship with their ancestors in depth.'
On the other end is 19-year-old Norah Sethi, a fourth-generation member of a family that migrated to India after Partition. Her family runs Ikk Panjab, a restaurant in Gurugram that is deeply rooted in ancestral memory and the cuisine of undivided Punjab.
I asked her if she felt connected to something so steeped in family history.
'I now feel a connection to it, especially because I never really knew our family's past,' she said. 'Seeing it come to life in Ikk Panjab made me realise how deeply rooted it is, and it's made me curious to learn more. Especially seeing my dadi's life, because she passed away when I was very little.'
These tangible links to the past—whether stitched, photographed or served on a plate—carry meaning far beyond nostalgia. They remind us that history does not always live in textbooks or monuments. More often, it lives quietly, in the everyday. And to preserve it, we must treat it not just as knowledge to be stored, but as inheritance to be held with care.