Nobody warns you that homesickness doesn't announce itself. It doesn't show up when you'd expect, like Diwali or your birthday. It ambushes you on a random Sunday in Astoria over a dabba of dal you made slightly wrong.
I was trying to recreate my mom's dal. The everyday one. The one that isn't a recipe, it's just muscle memory she's had since before I was born.
Mine came out fine. Edible. But it wasn't hers. There was something missing that I couldn't name, and I stood at my stove on 30th Avenue tasting it over and over, getting quietly furious that I couldn't figure out what.
So I called her. Just to ask about the tadka.
And she picked up mid-argument with my dad about the AC, and behind her I could hear the pressure cooker whistle, and the TV playing some serial, and the specific chaos of a Sunday afternoon at home that I have not been part of in two years.
And I just started crying. Over dal. On a video call. In my tiny Queens kitchen.
She didn't even ask why. That's the thing about moms. She just softened her voice and said beta, tune hing daala? And I hadn't. I'd forgotten the asafoetida. Such a small thing. Such a stupid, tiny, everything thing.
Homesickness lives in the hing. In the details you don't notice until they're gone.
I think I moved to New York believing independence meant not needing anyone. Fashion degree, big city, build the life, all of it. And I do love the life. I love my walk to the N train, I love the Greek bakeries, I love that Astoria smells like six countries at once.
But needing your mom isn't weakness. Missing a kitchen you grew up in isn't failure. It's just proof you came from somewhere warm.
I added the hing. The dal got closer. Not exact. Never exact.
Some recipes you can only fully make with the person standing next to you. I'm okay with getting it 80 percent right for now.
Call your mom before the dal goes cold.
Love,