Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
CW: Death and Grief
by Sumitra Singam
Ma squeezes Indian limes, more yellow than green, their spongy give belying their tart taste, and I peel the ginger, gnarled like an old woman’s hands, and a memory threatens, of papery skin holding my childhood hand holding the knife, curls of ginger peel falling like tears. There was always three of us, someone to make the sugar syrup, to add sweet stickiness to the concoction, but today it is just Ma and I. A paper cut on my index finger stings with the sharp ginger juice, and I suck my teeth. “What is it, kanna?” Ma asks, kissing my finger, even though I am in my thirties. We both give way to grief, wet and salty – this is the first time we have made ginger-lime juice without my Paati, my mother’s mother. We pull apart, viscous like the juice, return to mixing it, and when it is done, it tastes sweet, sour, sharp, salty, bitter.
Sumitra writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). She works in mental health. You can find her and her other publication credits on twitter: @pleomorphic2
