My 270-year-old Family Heirloom Is Not At All What I Thought It Was
An unexpected journey of a “pendant” across 12 generations and three continents
When my Indian-born grandmother was terminally ill, she handed me what appeared to be a golden pendant.
“It has been in my family for hundreds of years” she said. “There is a date on it — whatever it is, that’s how long we’ve had it”
Looking at it, and knowing that it was old (1749 according to the faint numbering on the object) — I concluded it was a picture of a colonial-era sepoy rifleman.
What an odd image to have on a pendant, I thought to myself.
I asked my mother about it who provided further context: “It had once been part of a larger necklace with 7 such pendants — passed from mother to daughter for generations.”
Turns out my great-great-grandmother who had seven children — disassembled the necklace and passed one pendant on to each of her children around 1920.
Eventually, it reached my mother — who had no daughters, and thus had no choice but to break with the matrilineal tradition and have it pass onto me.
There was something weird about it though. About the pendant that is. Something a little off.
