Carrier’s Hollow

Some mornings, I catch myself reaching for the outline of that old tiffin, only to find the shelf bare and my hand hovering above its ghost. I think about the way Ma bundled it up—how the sari’s border almost swallowed the metal. For this piece, I broke the lid first. I wanted to feel the break in my palm, carry its echo through each knot and patch. There’s hush in a hollow, you know—something soft, expectant. I kept things small, gathered only the tiniest scraps. You can tuck it in your palm, trace the seam where the cloth pulls around the shard, feel how the cord knots resist your thumb. I left the mending visible, stitches uneven, thread tails loose. Not to show off labor—just to mark where care held things together. When I pass this to someone, I hope they feel the same pause I do: the weight of an absence, cradled. Some things—loss, tending, the memory of a shape—are only understood by the hands.