this week started with chicken, dal and rice.

nothing profound.

just good food.

then friday, i spent the whole day at the temple with muruga, asking for his blessings for the year ahead.

after that, things got a little chaotic.

a friend-of-a-friend’s birthday party.

then, somehow, at 1am, i was at peter’s house cooking chicken.

at 4am, i ended up at another friend’s house and slept for the day.

later, a friend cooked paniaram with tomato chutney and coconut chutney.

then another friend’s house.

movie night.

biryani.

sunday was another friend’s house again.

food.

peace.

sleep.

and sunday night, ice cream.

looking back, my whole week seems to have happened around food.

i didn't notice it while it was happening.

at my friend’s place, i picked up barkat: the inspiration and the story behind one of the world’s largest food drives - feed india.

i wasn't expecting much.

i just started reading.

but the book kept pulling me somewhere.

it talked about food as emotion.

food as sharing.

food as memory.

there was a story from the mahabharata about draupadi and krishna and serving food to people.

another story about sharing a lemon tree.

stories about partition.

stories about people.

and then, somewhere in the middle of reading about other people's stories, i started thinking about mine.

my grandmother.

whenever i went to her house, she would always give me something to take home.

sometimes food.

sometimes something small.

she would never let me leave empty-handed.

as a child, i never thought much about it.

it was just what grandma did.

but sitting there reading this book, years later, i suddenly understood that it wasn't really about the food.

it was about sending me home with something.

a little piece of her.

something that said:

take this with you.

and that made me cry.

i started thinking about sharing.

not food specifically.

sharing in general.

how was i when i was a child?

what did i share?

what did i refuse to share?

when did i start understanding sharing?

who taught me?

maybe nobody sat me down and explained it.

maybe i just watched.

someone cooked.

someone served.

someone packed something for me to take home.

someone opened their house.

someone said, eat first.

and maybe that's how some things get passed down.

not through lessons.

through little things we experience so often that we don't realise we're learning them.

maybe that is what being 25 is for me right now.

not having everything figured out.

but being old enough to look back at the child i was and start recognising pieces of myself.

the things i care about now.

the way i think.

the way i give.

the way i receive.

maybe they didn't suddenly appear.

maybe they were quietly being built all along.

through food.

through people.

through homes.

through stories.

through the way people give.

i started the week thinking about what i ate.

then i noticed how often i was eating with people.

then a book made me think about food as sharing.

then sharing took me back to my grandmother.

and my grandmother took me back to myself.

maybe growing up is partly this:

you keep moving forward,

and every once in a while, something makes you turn around.

you look at where you came from.

and suddenly, something that felt ordinary when you were a child makes sense.

i’m 25.

and for the first time, i'm starting to notice how much of me was already there.

Be Kind, help people, trust muruga.