Utensils, Memory, and Meaning

“What does the vat contain that is not in the river?

What does the room encompass that is not in the city?

This world is the vat, and the heart the running stream;

This world the room, and the heart the city of wonders.”

— Rumi

There are many ways to read these lines — as with most poetry, meaning lies in the heart of the reader. To me, they feel almost paradoxical. The river moves; the vat contains. The city changes; the room curates. And yet, both hold something of the other. The river carries traces of what it passes through, and the vat preserves what time might otherwise wash away.

Our rooms, too, hold fragments of many worlds — keepsakes, heirlooms, utensils, inherited objects that anchor us through shifting fortunes. The heart, like the river, is restless; the home, like the vat, holds the residue of everything we’ve loved and lost.

These lines inspired Subodh Gupta’s monumental sculpture, What does the vessel contain, that the river does not? — a massive boat brimming with gleaming utensils. It’s said to evoke “belonging and displacement, movement and stability.”

And that feels true of utensils themselves — those humble, everyday witnesses to our migrations and meals, our rituals and routines.

Utensils as Memory

Every household has its constellation of vessels that outlast people and eras. In my mother’s kitchen, it was a steel tiffin box etched faintly with my initials, its lid still carrying the faint scent of tamarind rice and summer train journeys. For others, it might be a brass uruli, a patinaed lota, or the steel “stand” that once stood sentinel in every South Indian kitchen, holding gleaming tumblers and idli plates in orderly tiers — a small architecture of daily life.

Utensils are, in that sense, repositories of memory. They travel across geographies, holding not just food but the imprint of the hands that have used them. Every dent, scratch, and burn mark records a lived history — of belonging and of movement.

Utensils as Mirror of Their Time

Art, too, has always noticed what sits on our tables.

In Leonardo’s Last Supper, the pewter plates and bread loaves are tokens of a world poised between faith and doubt. In Mughal miniatures, copper and bronze platters gleam in jeweled courts — reflections of empire, abundance, and ceremonial etiquette.

Raja Ravi Varma’s domestic interiors shimmer with brass lamps and steel vessels — the meeting point between tradition and colonial modernity. And elsewhere, in Chardin’s still lifes or van Gogh’s Potato Eaters, ceramics and rough earthenware capture the quiet dignity of ordinary labor.

Each material tells its own story of access and aspiration.

In Europe, pewter and porcelain reflected the rise of an industrial middle class that sought refinement and restraint — smooth surfaces, pale glazes, and delicate uniformity. They were meant to be admired as much as used, signaling civility and restraint.

In South Asia, copper and bronze expressed a different value system — one rooted in ritual, endurance, and tactile richness. They were made to be held, scrubbed, heated, and used daily; beauty here was not in perfection, but in patina.

One tradition polished surface; the other deepened substance.

Why We Chose Metal

Unlike the West, which grew enamored with ceramics and glass, India remained steadfastly loyal to metal. The reasons were both practical and philosophical.

Metal endured heat, fire, and ritual purification. It could be scoured clean, polished back to life, and passed down generations. It resonated — literally — with sound and ceremony: the clang of a ladle against a brass uruli, the ring of a steel tumbler, the echo of a temple bell.

In a land where food was both nourishment and offering, metals like copper, bronze, and brass weren’t just utensils — they were conduits between the earthly and the sacred. Each alloy carried connotations: copper for purity, bronze for longevity, brass for auspiciousness.

The Shift to Stainless Steel

By the mid-20th century, as India urbanized and globalized, stainless steel arrived — light, durable, and hygienic, it mirrored the modernist dream. It democratized the kitchen: affordable, indestructible, easy to clean.

Yet it also marked a new era in how utensils were made. Stainless steel’s hardness and precision suited mass manufacturing far better than the hand-forging of earlier metals. Rolling, stamping, and polishing could all be mechanized. The result was uniformity — bright, identical pieces that gleamed with post-Independence optimism.

But that same quality also distanced it from the handmade. Unlike brass or bronze, which invited the artisan’s touch and carried the marks of craft, steel resists the hand. It’s too smooth, too exacting, too cold to hammer by instinct. A few companies, like Alessi in Italy, have tried to reintroduce artistry to steel — through sculptural teapots and imaginative designs — yet even they embrace its modernity rather than disguise it.

If brass and bronze belonged to hearth and ritual, steel belonged to the age of mobility and machines. It was the metal of the migrant — stackable, unbreakable, ready to move.

The Return of Brass and Bronze

Today, as artisanal craft and sustainability re-enter our collective imagination, brass and bronze are finding their way back — not as nostalgia pieces but as acts of reconnection.

Across India, families of traditional artisans continue to hand-cast and hammer these alloys. In workshops where the rhythm of work still follows ancestral methods, molten metal is poured into sand molds, then beaten, filed, and polished until it glows like a second sun.

Each vessel is slightly different — its curve imperfect, its surface alive. These pieces are not only functional but profoundly human, carrying centuries of skill and the quiet dignity of labor.

Hand-hammered urulis, kalchattis, and vases made by hereditary artisans reassert the aesthetic and ecological intelligence of older materials. They age beautifully, absorb flavor, and quietly resist the disposability of modern life.

Perhaps we are realizing, once again, that our kitchens — like Rumi’s vat, like Gupta’s vessel — hold more than just what meets the eye. They contain memory, motion, and meaning.

Belonging and Displacement, Movement and Stability

The utensil sits precisely at this intersection. It is what moves with us and what remains behind. It connects migration and memory; it holds the past even as it adapts to the present.

A vessel is never just a thing — it is a language of care, of repetition, of inheritance. And as the year turns, this feels especially resonant.

As the Season Turns

The beginning of the holiday season is a time for gathering — around kitchens, dining tables, porches, and stoves. Whether alone or in company, we cook, remember, and decide what will become the stuff of memory for the coming year. Utensils, humble and radiant, witness all of it. They catch laughter and silence, glances and gestures, as surely as they hold curries or biryani.

And perhaps that’s why we’ve been thinking about them — because in their reflective surfaces, we catch glimpses of ourselves: who we were, what we keep, and how we love.

From all of us at PODI life, we wish you a warm, reflective season — one filled with good food, good company, and the familiar gleam of something well-loved.