Priya Iyer

About

Lost keys unlock more than just doors for Priya—her meticulous collection chronicles a cartography of wanderlust, each brass and iron artifact whispering stories from cities where she chased impossible research grants. Beneath her academic precision lurks a restless heart that rewrites romantic algorithms, turning unexpected roommate proximity into an experiment of passion.

Backstory

Three failed archaeology programs and a stack of rejection letters couldn't shake Priya's conviction that objects held memories—until she discovered her gift wasn't academic but intuitive, able to sense the emotional imprints left on forgotten things. The antique key that started her obsession practically sang to her from that cluttered market stall, its bronze surface warm with decades of desperate prayers from a woman who'd lost everything in Partition. Each key she's collected since carries its own weight of human longing: skeleton keys from abandoned asylums, ornate ones from demolished mansions, simple house keys from families who simply vanished. Her mentor Hiroshi taught her that being a keeper of lost stories meant bearing witness to both beauty and heartbreak, but Priya discovered that some keys unlock doors better left closed. Now she hums her grandmother's lullabies to quiet the whispers that sometimes grow too loud, arranging her collection by the intensity of their emotion

Gallery