The Scent of My Mother’s Kitchen

I still remember the scent—

cardamom warming the air like a whispered lullaby,

cumin crackling in oil,

stories rising with the steam.

Her kitchen was a world

stitched from spice and sunlight,

where time softened

like lentils soaking in a copper bowl.

The scent clung to my childhood—

braided into my hair,

soaked into school uniforms,

hidden in the folds of my notebooks

like pressed petals of memory.

There was love in the rhythm of her hands,

folding dough,

stirring silence into curry,

making peace with the world

one roti at a time.

I never knew grief

could smell like burnt onions,

or how emptiness could be heard

in the absence of a ladle scraping steel.

The kitchen, once alive with the music of her movement,

now breathes in hushed stillness.

Sometimes, I stand where she stood—

trying to recreate the taste of comfort,

but recipes cannot teach

what was passed through glances,

what was measured by instinct,

what was made with heartache and hope.

I chase her in the scent of tamarind,

in cloves tucked into rice,

in the ginger that burns just right.

She lingers in the flavors—

not just of food,

but of forgiveness,

of sacrifice,

of the soft resilience only mothers know.

Her kitchen taught me

that warmth doesn’t always come from fire,

that nourishment is a language

spoken best in silence.

And when the world is too loud,

too sharp,

too hollow—

I close my eyes,

inhale deep,

and return to her.

A place not on a map,

but in the scent of her kitchen—

where I am still a child,

still loved,

still home.