Read an exclusive excerpt from the book Paati’s Rasam

Little Malli loves her grandmother’s rasam. She wants to learn to make it. Then one day, Paati is gone, and so is the dish that felt like a warm hug.

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.

(Image courtesy Pallavi Jain / Karadi Tales)

Paati is now just a memory. And so are her massages, the

(Image courtesy Pallavi Jain / Karadi Tales)

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.

(Image courtesy Pallavi Jain / Karadi Tales)

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)