For this week's story on #MuseumofMaterialMemory, Sri Muktsar Sahib-based Khushveen Brar writes about a salwar and a pair of panjeb that belong to her nani, Hardev Kaur, and bequeathed to her by her elder sister-in-law, Gurdial Kaur, both of whom hailed from Faridkot, Punjab. 1/ Khushveen writes that she was only four years old when her nani passed, but the death impacted her mother deeply, who was the youngest of six siblings. She shares a photo of her grandparents in their late twenties, with their two eldest children. 2/

It really breaks my heart to write this, but Nazmuddin Khan sahib, on whom I wrote a chapter (probably my favourite one) in Remnants, is no more. Born in 1929 in Delhi's Hauz Rani, he passed away just short of 92 years. 1/ We didn't meet often, but when we did, he called me Munni. He was the first person to make me realize that my work was not merely on objects or Partition, but rather on identity and belonging. True belonging to land and home and soil; a belonging for the living and the dead. 2/

In my work, I often write how the house of the past is perceived to be more beautiful than the house of the present - one filled with longing and memory. It is not unusual to come across interviewees who physically inhabit this belief. This is a thread on a house of the past 1/ Exactly four years ago, I witnessed something that sprouted in my heart an unavoidable and insatiable yearning to be able to physically move someone from India and take them to their childhood home in what was known as Mintgumri (now Sahiwal) in Pakistan. 2/

As someone who writes about Independence and the 1947 Partition all year round, the month of August feels particularly strange, despite its commemorative status, and the feeling inside my heart on the two historic days - 14th and 15th - is uniquely hollow. A thread 1/ These dates weigh on me, as they may also weigh on those who lived through them in 1947. I find myself wondering, year after year, do the people who witnessed Partition celebrate life and freedom, or mourn the price they paid for that freedom, or do both? 2/

The original front page of The Daily Milap newspaper from April 12, 1931, featuring the two Gandhis of Undivided India - Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhi of Frontier. 1/ In 1923, Arya Samaji Lala Kushal Chand started an Urdu daily out of Lahore called Milap, which quickly became the largest circulated Urdu newspaper, known for its powerful nationalistic editorials. It also published Fikr Taunsvi's famed 27-year long ‘Kaagaz ke Chhilke' column. 2/

Pran Nevile sahab once told me about #BhaionKiDukaan, most famous in all of Anarkali bazar apparently since the Mughal era for making oils, perfumes and scents 1/ When I met him just weeks before his death, with an air of great romance, he claimed that any one of the Bhaion ki dukaan fragrances could win the hearts of a "beau" or a "belle". For this it was famous not only in Lahore shehr but also the whole of Punjab 2/