Preserving love, legacy in pickle jars

EVERY summer brings back the familiar scent of raw mangoes and sun-warmed spices — and with it, memories that time cannot erase. This year, as I sat at the dining table with my mother and sister-in-law, carefully cutting unripe mangoes into neat, precise pieces, I was transported to another time, another table. The present mingled gently with the past, as the tang of mustard seeds and the earthy scent of fenugreek filled the air.

I thought of childhood summers at my nani’s house — a small home, large enough to hold generations of love, laughter and tradition. Pickling wasn’t just a kitchen activity. It was a ritual. A celebration of womanhood, memory and legacy.

As the days grew longer and the sun harsher, my grandfather and I would head to the bustling mandi with nani’s strict instructions: the mangoes had to be firm, slightly round, not too large, never too small — unripe, but not overly sour. She had refined the art over decades. Quiet and meticulous, grandpa took great pride in this task. When we returned, grandma would inspect each mango with a sharp eye. Her approving nod was enough to make him beam like a child.

Mangoes were washed and laid to dry on old cotton saris, their faded colours rich with stories. Mornings began with women in the courtyard turning mango pieces under the sun, exchanging laughter that clinked like glass bangles.

Afternoons belonged to the spices. Sun-dried seeds were roasted on an iron tawa, their aroma rising like a secret passed down generations. The rhythmic pounding of spices in the stone mortar became a backdrop to the women’s chatter — mothers, daughters, aunts, cousins — all bound by shared work and wordless understanding. Stories were told, jokes exchanged, silences held. Sometimes even grief slipped quietly into the spice mix.

By evening, the pickle came together — mangoes tossed with mustard, red chilli, turmeric and oil, golden and thick, like memory itself. Ceramic jars were filled and set out in the sun, stirred lovingly each morning. Before the monsoon came the distribution. Small containers were packed and sent to daughters now living elsewhere — carrying with them a taste of their childhood, a fragment of their belonging.

Now, as I look around our dining table — three generations of women slicing, mixing, laughing — I realise we’re doing much more than making pickles. We are continuing something older than all of us. My grandmother may be gone, but her voice echoes in how my mother blends the spices. Her gentleness lives on in the way my sister-in-law dries each mango piece.

In this simple act of pickling, women who came before and those yet to come are all here — in the stories we share, the silences we hold and the warmth that fills the room. We are not just preserving mangoes. We are preserving each other as well as the love passed down from one generation to the next.

Musings