Comissioned by Fourteen Magazine, an online thematic bi-annual magazine that platforms anti-caste writing and multimedia work. My contribution to this issue is a short essay-diary film that is an ethnographic account of my mother Hazel’s memories of clothing and textile labour in her family. Her father John worked as a weaver at Khatau Mills for 40 years. He came to Bombay from Shirwa, which is located in South Canara, at the age of eleven in the 1930s. His family were known for growing and selling flowers and vegetables in the local market. Her four brothers took turns working at the mills. Her mother Elizabeth stitched godhadhis (hand woven quilts) to keep the family afloat in difficult times. John worked at the mills even through the famed textile strike of the 80s, as he had to keep a family of six afloat, and also support his extended family at home in Shirwa. As the film goes on, Hazel reveals that all the men and women in the family were competent weavers and creators of textile, both for home use and for sale. The film treats textiles as intimate archives of memory, alongside family photographs and an interview with my mother’s voice, as well as my father’s photo albums.

Duration: 10 minutes

The film focuses on the role of the local church as a community space through a personal narrative of a public school teacher, Hazel Pinto. Hazel grew up in the Bombay Improvement Trust Blocks at Agripada, a unique colonial architectural experiment in social housing, as a member of a working-class Catholic family in mid-20th century Bombay. The film juxtaposes colonial missionary commentary, personal recollections of rituals, contemporary stills of the church, and archival footage of the industrial working class. It intertwines the personal with the political, examining how gender, religion, and class shape memory.  The film advocates for the preservation of untold histories, especially those of the working class. 

Duration: 10 minutes