Kanda Pohe (Le Creuset Cooking)

In a cozy third-floor apartment tucked away in a leafy lane of Indore, sunlight streamed through the mesh of a half-open kitchen window, casting warm flecks across the tiled counter. It was lockdown, and everything was still. Everything, except this kitchen.

It was Sunday morning, and the air was alive with the crackle of mustard seeds and the heady perfume of curry leaves wilting in ghee. Tara, seventeen and determined, stood at the stove—brows furrowed, ladle in hand—as she attempted to recreate her favorite Sarafa Bazaar breakfast: poha and jalebi. She had watched a dozen YouTube videos, scribbled frantic notes in her diary, and now stirred the flattened rice like it was gold.

On the other side of the kitchen, her little brother Naman had taken his task with just as much gravitas. He was cutting lemon wedges with exaggerated precision and folding old newspapers into cones like the snack stalls did. The paper was yesterday’s Patrika, and one of the cones still had a crossword half-done.

In a low cane chair by the doorway, their dadi observed it all like a benign monarch. She held her walking stick in one hand, a tiny steel bowl of saunf in the other. “Not like that, Tara,” she interrupted, not unkindly. “Poha needs patience, not poking. And add just a touch more fennel.” She knew the recipe by heart, the kind that wasn’t written down but passed on through breakfasts and memory.

From a corner of the room, a Bluetooth speaker sputtered to life. Lata Mangeshkar’s voice floated out—Lag jaa gale...—wrapping the morning in velvet nostalgia.

Their mother joined soon, mug of chai in one hand, her hair tied into a messy bun with the other. She walked over to the stove, pinched salt into the poha like magic, and tasted it with the edge of a spoon. “Almost there,” she whispered to Tara with a wink.

Soon the jalebi syrup bubbled like amber, catching the light. The kitchen, once quiet, was now a universe of sound: radio static, spoons clinking, oil sizzling, siblings squabbling, retro melodies hanging in the air like lazy kites.

And when they finally sat down on the floor—poha topped with sev, jalebi glistening on steel plates, lemon wedges stacked beside—the city outside was still. But in that little kitchen, Indore lived on. The taste of street food. The comfort of family. And a memory, hot and sweet as syrup, folded into the heart forever.