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Paati would gently ladle some hot rasam over the mountain of rice on my plate and top it off with a generous dollop of ghee.
“Paati, you’re the best rasam-maker!” I’d squeal as I smacked my lips.
“I wish I could have it every day. Teach me how to make it!”
“Someday, Malli. Someday,” she’d always say, laughing.
“Promise?”
“Yes, yes, promise!”
But then, one day, everything changed.
I feel like a rainbow without colour.
“I don’t want to go to school, Amma,” I say, throwing my bag on the sofa. “I have to write an essay about something I love and take it to class on Monday… But I can’t take Paati with me, can I?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“What about all the things Paati and you did together? The sudoku, the puzzles, the books you read?”
I shake my head.
“Maybe you could take one of Paati’s saris and speak about her?”
As I shake my head, my eyes fall on the kitchen counter. There sat Paati’s eeyachombu.
“Amma,” I ask softly, “can I take Paati’s rasam?”
But Amma doesn’t know how to make Paati’s rasam. We hunt for the recipe.
Amma even calls Chithi and Mama. Her siblings don’t seem to know any better. They give her bits and pieces of what they can remember.
We piece together what we think is Paati’s rasam.
Amma cuts the tomatoes and soaks the tamarind while Appa and I get the spices out.
The tamarind and tomatoes are boiled in Paati’s eeyachombu.
The spices are added, followed by a final flourish of ghee and mustard.
The house smells like rasam.
But it isn’t Paati’s. I don’t even have to taste it to know it isn’t hers. My face crumples.
“Do you want to take something else, Malli?” Appa asks gently.
I sigh and shrug.
“Malli, you should just take the eeyachombu,” Amma says.
I look at her.
“You can fill it with things that remind you of Paati. Like her little sudoku book. Or the bottle of oil she used for your head massages. And, perhaps, talk about Paati’s rasam?”
It is still unsatisfying. I shrug without enthusiasm.
(Excerpted with permission from Paati’s Rasam by Janaki Sabesh & Dhwani Sabesh, illustrated by Pallavi Jain; published by Karadi Tales; 2021)
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