As well as the usual markets selling everything from
industrial chemicals to paper products Lahore has several that specialise in
second hand wares. Some of these are obviously local – dead format electronica
and spares for the ever present Suzuki Khyber. Others are clearly imports,
either from British or Canadian charity shops, Japanese lost property offices,
or the varied detritus of those who came and stayed a while then left their
things behind.
So yesterday, wandering with Warda, we found tins marked 'by
appointment to HM the King' and commemorative trinkets celebrating the marriage
of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.
Of the former it is easy enough to speculate a history. A
colonial officer bringing with him his family and things known to be hard to
find on the outlying edges of empire. Reports from sunburnt wives of the
unavailability of Oxo cubes, canned vegetables, condensed milk. Though how this
tin survived the upheavals of the last 60 or 70 years to end up now in my
custody cannot be known. But here it is, small and perfect and hardly corroded
by intervening summers.
Of the wedding mug it is harder to say. Has it been here
since the 1980s, the prize possession of a local monarchist. Or did it come
last week, the last un-saleable item in some widow's estate. In any case it was
cracked, and badly repaired with yellowing epoxy.
Better were the tea cups, English porcelain from long
defunct Midland's potteries. The pastel colours of the last days of British
manufacturing. Some chipped, many whole, all utterly mismatched. That they came
so long after the end of Empire seems appropriate. First were sent people, and
the things they need. Then because of trade ties industrial equipment and
education. Much later came what was rejected then rejected again. In another
generation there will be no English things to find their way into the world,
even second hand.
I have them wrapped in paper for the journey home.
