The Sari Box
In the series The Sari Box the very container, which transported one family’s photographs, becomes the memorial icon and symbol of cultural dislocation. A Pakistani woman, now living in Boston, gave me her mother’s empty sari box, which she especially cherished, because it reminded her of her very first sari, which all Pakistani girls receive at age sixteen. “This picturesque package actually transported our fleeing family’s photographs from Karachi to Tel Aviv via Tehran.”
One faded, deteriorating photograph circa 1900 from Poona, India stood out, because it was accompanied by a note scripted in perfect penmanship. The scribe was the owner of The Sari Box, as well as the granddaughter of the matriarch in the picture. Written a century after the picture was made, it states: “I can’t remember my grandmother’s name.”