My Mother’s Indian Pickles Helped Me Salvage 2020

Nothing is cancelled. Everything lies in wait.

Navarathri begins in two weeks. That’s a hard sentence to type right now. In an ordinary year, this is when my brain would be in overdrive: buzzing with schedules, counting gift bags by the dozen, planning special sundals for each of the ten days of the holiday, figuring out a color scheme for the decorations, plotting which of the dishes I’d clipped and saved would make the cut for this year’s menu…the list goes on. But of course this is no ordinary year.

India is a polyglot nation, a land well-versed in multiples of everything: languages, traditional foods, and clothing styles. Our holiday calendar is dotted with nods to many different belief systems, and people will lobby hard for their personal favorites. Diwali is the shiny braggart, winning most popularity contests by a mile. But my heart will always and forever belong to Navarathri, “the festival of nine nights” that inspires such a sensory overload of memories, just thinking about it can summon up a golf-ball-sized lump in my throat.

The best equivalent I can think of for the feelings Navarathri evokes in me is December in America. Planning is extended, nostalgia is high, and joy is concentrated. I know millions are mourning what the holiday season may look like this winter…