The Quiet Wisdom of Presence

SOME PEOPLE LEAVE behind estates. Others leave behind empty chairs at the table. Aruna—my maasi, my maa-jaisi, my bestie—left behind mooli methi parathas, salted caramel ice cream, long walks through fog-draped San Francisco hills, and a mindscape so rich with memory it feels more alive now that she’s gone.

She passed away on July 14, too soon, taken suddenly by bacterial meningitis while on a trip to Hawaii. Her absence is sharp, stunning—like the sudden crack of brittle glass. And yet, even now, I find her everywhere.

In my mind’s kitchen, I see her fingers— slender, quick—deftly stuffing grated mooli and fresh methi leaves into pliant dough. I see her thumb press into the searing hot paratha to make a little well for butter, even as it burnt her skin, because it had to be done just right: crisp outside, pillowy inside, butter melting through. My nani made them this way, but so did Aruna, keeping alive a tradition of care disguised as food. Nobody else’s parathas even come close.

In my mind’s streets, I see her striding ahead of me through the rolling slopes of Pacific Heights, where she lived in an old, charming apartment that seemed to float above the city. I’d lag behind, and she’d laugh at me—she who in her late seventies could walk, jog, run up and down those treacherous hills as if they were flat plains. She was tireless, a marathoner of life, unbowed by age or ache.

And always—always—she’d already secured us a table at Delfina. Pizzeria Delfina was our ritual. The fritti, the fried vegetables, the crisp pizza, the Italian soda, the sorbet. She ate lightly, but fed me heartily. Sometimes, there would be Thai instead—papaya salad, green curry, noodles.

And now I wonder—how will I eat these foods again without her? The answer, of course, is that I won’t. She will be at the table with me, every time. That is the beauty of memory— that the ones we love never really leave. They simply move into the food, the music, the streets, the fabric of our being.

We even went to watch Fifty Shades of Grey together, giggling at how improbable we must have looked to the other moviegoers. She never let herself be boxed into anyone else’s expectations.

She wore saris with the grace of a queen and slipped into dresses like a movie star. She belonged everywhere she went—in Indian kitchens, in Italianpizzerias, infoggyparks, in candlelit cinemas.

And she taught me the quiet wisdom of presence. How to walk in step with someone. How to laugh even when it hurts. How to make someone feel welcome in your life without ever letting them feel they’re a burden.

In her absence, the table feels emptier—and yet she is more present than ever. That is the paradox of loss: the heart swells even as it breaks.

So tonight, if you’re reading this, I hope you do one thing: take someone you love out to share a pizza. Or make them a paratha. Or walk to the corner ice cream shop and get two scoops of salted caramel. Sit down with a niece, a nephew, a friend’s child, a friend’s parent—someone you love—and give them the kind of evening they’ll remember long after you’re gone.

Because what remains—after the body gives way, after the hills go quiet, after the last paratha is folded—is the memory. The memory becomes you. The memory becomes them.

Aruna is gone—but she’s left me with a kitchen full of flavours, a city full of streets, and a heart full of evenings we shared. She lives on in every butter-stuffed paratha, every foggy hill, every salted caramel bite.

She flows through my blood now, more real than ever, even in her absence. Immortal in my mindscape. Eternal in my being.

That is the true taste of love.

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