The Smell of My Childhood Home? Dosa.
The temperature is hot, too hot for England at 30 degrees Celsius. I am lying down on the sofa, trying to read. My kids are playing on their tablets. It is quiet time after all, this time of day that I always find a little tedious to cope with. The transition from afternoon to evening; I am clearly distracted and cannot read. I want to get up and play a board game with the both of them. But my body is behaving badly. It is not willing to move properly. My eyelids become heavy with lethargy. I can feel a lazy, lethal lethargy descending upon my being…
I suddenly feel an urgent need to drink water. It is a deep thirst. The heat cannot be the only reason. It is. Oh, wait. What did I have for lunch? Dosa. Oh, yes. That fermented pancake always makes me thirsty. Always made me thirsty as a child too, as I grew up in hot tropical Bombay. I find out now that it still does. My kids love dosa and so does my husband. It is a firm family favourite and I am extremely grateful for a meal option over which there is always unanimous agreement.
Dosa is very simply a savory pancake usually made of fermented batter, essentially rice and urad dal as the basis. It is cooked exactly like a pancake on a hot iron girdle and eaten with chutney; coconut chutney being the most favourite choice, the most traditional one too. Dosa reminds me of home. I turn towards it when the foreignness of the food here in England begins to really mess with my taste buds, and it is as if my taste buds are calling out to me to give them once again some kind of familiarity or flavor that reflects the familiarity of home
My childhood home in Bombay always smelt of filter coffee. If you ask me what else it smelled of, I would certainly smile and without a doubt of hesitation say Dosa.
As I think about this very loaded concept of home interspersed with dosa, I am pulled back into time. It is as if I were on a flight of stairs and climbing up the stairs but facing backwards. I am seven again. It is also 7am on a busy weekday morning but in grandma’s kitchen. Grandma stands by the age-old gas stove upon which sits a sizzling tava spluttering with mustard seeds. Outside, the birds are chirping creating a cheerful morning crescendo. Grandma takes a ladleful of dosa batter and expertly spreads it in a concentric circle on the overheated tava. It is as if she has used a geometric compass to lend the dosa the appearance of a full moon. The dosa begins cooking on the tireless tava. Grandma waits for a couple of minutes before flipping it over. My grandad and I patiently wait for the dosa to slide into our plates.The dosa feels like butter paper under my fingertips. I tear into it, dip it into coconut chutney and scoop it into my mouth. The flavours of the chutney together with the dosa overpower my senses.
I am in a trance of sorts. Grandma asks me whether I would like some coffee. I eagerly nod my head, gratitude washing over me. Thankful not just for any dosa, but for the dosa fermented with her affection and unconditional love.
Growing up we had at least five different types of dosas which appeared at breakfast as the lead actors would in a 90’s Bollywood movie. Their role would be embellished by an actress whose role at the time unfortunately would revolve around looking pretty, doing nautanki and lip syncing to the many songs that constituted a film (we are talking 6 songs easily). So you’d have thin dosas and crisp dosas, thick dosas and sour dosas, dosas with spices and plain dosas, dosas with a mixture of dals and even semolina dosas!
One of my most favourite dosas which would be classified as special because it included a potato filling in addition to the chutney is Massala dosa.
I am not exaggerating here when I say that my Mother makes the best masala dosa. Sunday breakfasts at home are filled with memories of hot masala dosas fresh off the tava and into our plates all thanks to my Mum. She took great care to cater to how each of us liked our dosa in terms of crispness, amount of potato bhaaji and chutney. She would lovingly make a number of dosas to feed her ravenous brood, never tiring even during Bombay's sweltering summer. This was her love for us in its truest form and for which I remain eternally grateful. I can also never forget how I craved masala dosa during both my pregnancies and how lucky I was that Mum satisfied these food cravings amongst others. No wonder that both my sons are huge dosa fans. There’s a dosa gene. I’m sure of it!
Dosa is considered to be a unifying means of nourishment from baby to old person. It is a simple finger food whose nutrition can be enhanced by adding blended veg etc to the batter. So to make it more interesting for my kids - I make pink dosa (beetroot) and green dosa (spinach). I also make dosas in different shapes - from peppa pig to footballs using cookie cutter moulds. One aspect of dosa which I am very strict about is that it MUST be eaten with your hands. There is something meditative about the process of feeling a crisp dosa under your finger tips, tearing a piece of the dosa, dunking it in coconut chutney and putting it in your mouth. The connection that you will feel with the food you are eating can never be compensated for when you use a fork and knife. I remember when my older son was three years old, he asked me for a fork and knife to eat dosa. I calmly told him that we eat dosa differently, we use our hands. So I sat with a dosa next to him and began eating with my hand. At first he was just poking the surface of the dosa with his fingertips then slowly, he tore a piece, dipped it in chutney and ate it himself. I was of course very pleased!
When my 95-year-old grandma had a fall and was recovering from the resulting hip surgery, it was dosa that nourished her back to health. My mum would make the dosa soft enough for her to eat and she would hold the dosa rolled into a cylinder of sorts , nimbly between her fingers and wash it down with some coffee. I would like to think of this combination as an elixir that nursed her back to life.
So dosa for me is more than just a circular food. In its shape I see wholeness. I see the world in a better light. It is my connection to home where life comes full circle.
If you want to cook your very own, I recommend this recipe!
Written by Snehal Amembal
I am a freelance writer, editor and poet based in Surrey (UK). I currently freelance with Business Insider, Her View From Home and Motherly. I am also an Editorial Board member for Parkinson’s UK. My writing primarily reflects my motherhood journey, memories of my childhood and the essence of everyday moments.
I have authored three chapbooks, ‘Pause’, ‘I Am’ and ‘In Between Love' . My fourth poetry book ‘Magical Mundane’ and my debut memoir ‘PapaMa’s Portrait’ will be published in the latter half of 2025.
My work has appeared in anthologies as well as in literary zines. I worked as an Editor with Daily Life Magazine for 1.5 y 2020 - 2021). You can take a look at my work here https://linktr.ee/notessonthego
Finally, I am a Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease (YOPD) warrior and create awareness about the condition through my writing.
