Yesha Gambhir Mirza
I had never planned to become a writer in my forties. Life, it seems, had other plans.
About four years ago, post-COVID complications left me struggling with what doctors euphemistically called severe pneumonia and chronic fatigue. The woman who once prided herself on juggling conference calls while supervising homework, who could mentally plan dinner while reviewing quarterly reports, suddenly found herself in bed all day needing support with breathing, even with a little physical movement.
During those long, quiet months of recovery, as I sat in our living room watching squirrels chase each other up the mango tree outside our balcony, my mind kept drifting to my Dadi-my paternal grandmother, Shanti. What would she make of all this?
Dadi had passed away, but her presence had been the gravitational centre of my childhood. Her kitchen was a magical place where simple ingredients transformed into something special, where the ritual of making achaar every summer brought the entire family together. She had a way of making ordinary moments feel sacred-the careful selection of mangoes, the precise measurement of spices by hand, the patient waiting as flavours melded and deepened in ceramic jars.
The satisfaction I would see in her eyes when she had distributed her pickled mangoes to the entire family, all of her 8 sons and daughters, and beyond to extended family was extraordinary-it was like her greatest treasure which she made, shared, and felt.
As I recovered, this thought took on new weight. Here I was, watching my children navigate a world where treasures were indeed bought-or at least clicked and delivered within hours. They lived in an economy of instant gratification that Dadi never could have imagined. Yet something essential seemed to be missing from their daily joy, something that all our convenience and connectivity couldn't provide.
I found myself wondering: What if Dadi could meet my children? What bridge could she build between her world of patience and presence and their world of speed and efficiency?
One afternoon, as I watched my daughter scroll through endless videos of other children showing off their latest purchases, the story began to take shape. What if a child like her could somehow meet someone like Dadi? What if the wisdom of the past could find a way to speak to the restlessness of the present?
I started writing in my notebook during those first tentative weeks, just fragments really-conversations I imagined between my grandmother and my children. I wrote about the mango tree outside our window, about the lost art of making achaar, about the particular joy that comes from creating something that brings people together.
Writing became my physical therapy for the mind. Each day, I could only manage a paragraph or two before exhaustion set in, but gradually, Amani's story emerged-a modern child caught between two worlds, learning that the past isn't something to be discarded but treasured and integrated.
The process forced me to slow down in ways I'd never chosen but desperately needed. I couldn't rush the writing; my health simply wouldn't allow it. Each sentence had to be carefully considered, and each scene was slowly developed. In a strange way, this limitation became a gift. It made me write the way Dadi cooked-with patience, with attention to detail, with trust in the process.
My children became my first readers, listening to chapters as I wrote them. Slowly, something shifted.
We spent a weekend recreating Dadi's pickle recipe-not from any cookbook, but from my fragmented memories and achaar making since has become my yearly ritual. I watched my children discover the simple satisfaction Dadi had tried to teach me decades earlier.
This book isn't about rejecting modernity-today's children are products of their time, and that's not something to be fixed. Instead, it's about finding balance, about helping them understand that they don't have to choose between embracing the future and honoring the past. They can create content for social media and make achaar by hand. They can video call with friends across the world and also notice the birds building nests outside their windows.
Writing "Shanti and Amani" taught me that some stories find us exactly when we need them. My post-COVID complication, which felt like such a loss, became the quiet space where this story could grow. The forced stillness that frustrated me became the very condition that allowed me to remember what truly matters.
It's the fact that the best achaar takes time to ferment, to develop its full flavour. At forty-three, with my first book published, I finally understand the value of right timing. Some gifts only come to us when we're ready to receive them, when life has slowed us down enough to pay attention.
My children are 12 now, and they still love their devices. But they also know how to make things by hand and share them-last I think was the sweet potato brownies-which was quite a hit with family and friends, how to sit quietly under trees, how to find joy in simple acts of creation and sharing. They understand that they're part of a long chain of stories, stretching back through generations of grandmothers who knew things worth remembering.
If Dadi were here today, I think she'd smile, I hope so. She'd probably want to learn how to make her own cooking videos, sharing her wisdom with an even wider circle of family and neighbours. The women of that generation understood, long before the rest of us, that the deepest human needs-for connection, for purpose, for the satisfaction of creating and sharing-don't change, no matter how much our tools and techniques evolve. To think about it, Facebook, which is the father of social media-actually simply connected people, which her achaar did as well.
The publishing journey humbled me in ways the illness never did. At least pneumonia had a clear diagnosis and treatment path. The literary world operates on mysterious algorithms of taste, timing, and market forces that no amount of research can fully decode. But perhaps that's fitting for a story born from forced patience. Some things, I learned, can't be rushed-not recovery, not good writing, and certainly not finding the right home for your work.
This book is my attempt to build that bridge between worlds, to honor both the wisdom of the past and the possibilities of the future. It's for every child growing up in our hyperconnected age, and for every adult who sometimes wonders if we're losing something essential in our rush toward tomorrow.
Most of all, it's a reminder that the greatest treasures really aren't bought. They're made, shared, and felt. And sometimes, they take years of patient fermentation before they're ready to be shared with the world.
By Yesha Gambhir Mirza, Author of Shanti and Amani: Secret of the Pickled Dream ( published by Simon and Schuster India)
