Even after all these years, I remember her as easily as the sun remembers to rise each morning. Her sturdy hands, plump frame, the cotton saris she always wore, the red bindi in the same spot every day, her crafts-and-crochet kit, the tight grip on my tiny hands when we crossed a road. She was stern and strong—my mother often told me that she could lift heavy metal suitcases with ease. But most of all, I remember the taste of the rasam she used to make.
She would mix the rasam in some rice, pour a generous helping of ghee (as per my demands), sit me down in front of the TV, and feed me with her hands. She would watch the Tamil serials with rapt attention, but at the same time, coax me into eating the rasam sadam (rasam rice).
Seventeen years later, I can still recount the taste of that rasam like I had it just yesterday. The tang from the tamarind, the way all the spices seamlessly mixed with each other, the garlic aftertaste, the brownish-red color, and that secret ingredient that made it so special...but alas, the recipe died with my Nani. My mom doesn't know the recipe, and neither do any of my uncles or aunts.
I did once stumble upon a rasam that was similar to the one my Nani used to make. I had gone with some friends to the small mountain town of Kotagiri, amidst the Kodaikanal and Ooty hills. We stayed at an Airbnb inside a tea estate for three days, and what a glorious three days it was. Every morning, we would wake up to the sound of silence, the kind of silence you can never find in a city. It was just us and the tea plants for miles, no cars or honking trucks, no hawkers, no sounds of construction...just the silence. We would walk around the estate, take a dip in the stream nearby and head to the cook's hut for lunch. Then we would have the most glorious lunch—rice, chicken curry, eggs, sambar, and rasam.
My first taste of that rasam left me reeling in shock, as suddenly and unexpectedly as a speed bump on a highway. Time slowed down as I dropped my spoon and exclaimed in gibberish, much to the alarm of my friends. This rasam reminded me of my Nani like nothing in the 15 years after her death did. It was then that I remembered; Kotagiri was my Nani's birthplace. She grew up amidst these hills, amidst the birds and animals that chirped and squawked to create a pleasant silence. She moved out of Kotagiri when she married my Thatha—but she brought her rasam recipe with her.
Strangely, my Thatha and Nani never feature in the same memories. Those of Nani are sparse and random, sometimes irrelevant, like the white Ambassador parked in her garden; and sometimes pleasant, like the plants and trees she tended to, some of them with leaves as big as my face. They come and go without warning and fade into the background as quickly as they come.
My memory of Nani invoked by that rasam in Kotagiri, however, was anything but fleeting. All of a sudden, it felt like someone had opened a dam, and a torrent of memories rushed forth. I remembered the day she died and how I had run away when my father told me she was no more. I remembered my brother, five years old, crying because he wouldn't be getting the choppu set Nani had promised him. (A choppu set is a collection of miniature kitchen utensils, pots and pans, stoves and burners.) I remember wondering why my brother was crying about a choppu set instead of my Nani perishing into nothingness.
What I don't remember, though, is whether I spoke to Nani in Hindi or Tamil. My family had lived all over the country, so we spoke both Hindi and Tamil at home. As a testament to this, I called my grandmother Nani and grandfather Thatha, never finding it weird that one was a Hindi term and one Tamil, until I was nineteen and eating rasam in Kotagiri.
At that moment, I swore not to leave Kotagiri without learning the rasam recipe from the cook. I started planning ahead almost immediately, relishing all the meals I would have with this rasam. I imagined the look of joy on my mother's face when I told her I finally had the recipe, so we could cling together to this relic of a woman long gone.
In all my excitement, I forgot to do the most important thing. I forgot to ask the cook for the recipe. It was only when we were halfway back home did I realize—with devastation—my folly.
Perhaps it was for the best, I tell myself now. Perhaps the recipe is better off in the past, where its taste can never be sullied, where it retains an aura of mystery and authenticity. Perhaps some things are best left untouched.
(Based on a true story.)
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