I wasn’t looking for anything special that day. Just a routine grocery run at the local H-E-B in South Austin — eggs, bread, a few ripe avocados, maybe some overpriced raspberries if they looked good. I was halfway down the spice aisle when it hit me. A smell. Not just any smell, but the smell. That unmistakable mix of roasted cumin, asafoetida, curry leaves crackling in hot oil, and the faint sweetness of jaggery in a corner of a pot. Somewhere, someone had opened a packet of sambar masala. And I just… froze.
There it was, right in the middle of fluorescent lighting and shopping carts and Taylor Swift playing over the speakers — a whole chapter of my childhood in one breath. My throat tightened. My eyes stung. I wasn’t expecting it. I wasn’t prepared to be ambushed by memory between canned beans and tortillas.
The Unfair Precision of Smell
They say smell is the most powerful trigger for memory. That it bypasses logic and lands straight in the emotional core. I believe it now. Because in that moment, I wasn’t 43, wearing cargo shorts and comparing unit prices. I was eight years old, standing on a plastic stool in my mother’s kitchen in Mumbai, handing her curry leaves while she stirred the sambar. The ceiling fan made everything smell stronger — the tamarind, the mustard seeds, the pressure-cooked toor dal. I used to think the aroma came from magic, not chemistry.
Back then, sambar wasn’t just a dish. It was a weekly event. Everyone had opinions on it — too thick, too watery, too many drumsticks, not enough tomatoes. My mother made a version passed down from her mother, who had learned it in a temple town near Udupi. The flavors were specific, but the feeling it created was even more specific: comfort, order, home.
From Aisles to Aachar
In H-E-B, the smell came from a small section awkwardly labeled “Indian Essentials.” It had the usual suspects — MDH boxes, Parle-G biscuits, frozen parathas that looked like they were made during the Cold War. A young woman was holding a pack of MTR Sambar Mix, debating whether to buy it. I smiled at her. I wanted to say, “If you knew what that smell does to people, you’d buy two.” But I just moved along.
I put the masala packet in my cart — even though I make my own from scratch at home. I didn’t need it. But I needed it.
Isn’t that how food works sometimes? It’s not about what your pantry lacks, but what your soul needs. That tiny red-and-yellow box wasn’t dinner; it was a phone call I never made, a lunch I missed back in Chembur, a Sunday I couldn’t get back.
Homesick in a Land of Plenty
Living in Texas has been kind to my appetite. There’s good Mexican, great barbecue, pho that feels like medicine, and tacos that make you want to hug the taquero. But Indian food here — especially the kind I grew up with — still carries the weight of translation. Everything is just a little different. Less funk. Less drama. Fewer fights over the last papad.
Sometimes I try to cook it all at home. I call my mom on WhatsApp for measurements she still gives in handfuls. I toast spices in a cast-iron skillet and chase the aroma that feels like home. But I’m always one step away from getting it right. Maybe it’s the water, or the rice, or just the fact that I’m not eight anymore, handing her curry leaves.
The Aisle Is a Portal
I stood in the aisle for longer than I meant to. I think I wanted to stay there — just a little more — in that smell, in that memory, in that forgotten kitchen. Grocery stores aren’t supposed to be emotional spaces. But that day, H-E-B became a little temple of memory, where nostalgia hit harder than the fluorescent lighting.
Eventually, I pushed my cart forward. I picked up the eggs, skipped the overpriced raspberries, and went home. That night, I made sambar. It wasn’t exactly like hers. But it was close enough. And as I stirred it, eyes stinging again — this time from onions — I realized something:
Some meals don’t fill your stomach. They fill the gap between where you are and where you came from. And every once in a while, a smell can stitch that distance shut — right there, between the lentils and the freezer aisle.
Born in Mumbai, now stir-frying feelings in Texas. Writes about food, memory, and the messy magic in between — mostly to stay hungry, sometimes just to stay sane.
Born in Mumbai, now stir-frying feelings in Texas. Writes about food, memory, and the messy magic in between — mostly to stay hungry, sometimes just to stay sane.
