The Meals That Made Grief Bearable

Grief is one of those feelings that arrives quietly but completely. It settles in the corners of your chest and makes everything a little heavier. It does not always need a name. If you have ever loved someone deeply, then you already know what grief feels like.

For me, grief has not always come with loss in the way people expect. It has come with distance. From people I love, from home, and sometimes, from parts of myself I could no longer reach. Every time I wanted to be closer to something and couldn’t, I felt it. The dull ache, the silence after a call that didn’t happen, the small waves of missing that crash before you realise they were even building. And when I feel like that, I cook and eat.

Not for anyone else. Just for myself. I boil potatoes. I mash them the way my nani showed me. I temper mustard seeds in hot oil, add turmeric and curry leaves, and let the air fill with the smell of something familiar. I roll the mixture into soft yellow rounds, dip them in besan, and fry them until they crackle and crisp. Alongside, I crush garlic, red chillies, and salt into a thick lasunaachi chutney. The kind that burns a little, but not enough to stop eating. That first bite—hot, sharp, soft in the middle—always reminds me of her. Of standing beside her in the kitchen, trying to get it right. Of feeling safe.

These are the moments in which grief loosens its grip. Not because anything is fixed, but because something small is holding you together. A bowl of food. A familiar smell. A memory that does not hurt as much as it did before. Food is not always a comfort. Sometimes it is memory. Sometimes it is routine. Sometimes it is the only language you have left when the words stop coming. This story is a collection of those languages. From people who, like me, found something to eat when they could no longer say what they felt. These meals are not extravagant. They are not even always good. But they held us when nothing else could.

These are the things we ate while grieving: 

A Taste Of Her Generosity

Anurag Arora is a self-taught chef and the founder of Apartment, a beloved pop-up series in Bengaluru known for blending nostalgia with experimental food. But long before he cooked for strangers, he learned what food could mean from his grandmother. When she passed away last year, Anurag found himself returning to the kind of food he grew up eating. He found himself craving the food he grew up with, especially karah prasad. Made of wheat flour, ghee, and sugar, karah prasad is handed out at every gurdwara. But for Anurag, it holds the memory of home. His grandmother made it often, always warm, always sweet, always enough. After she was gone, he began visiting the gurdwara more often. Not just to pray, but to feel close to her. To receive something that reminded him of the way she gave — gently, generously, without needing to be asked. He says the way he cooks and hosts now comes from her. She never let anyone leave the house hungry. Even today, when he eats karah prasad, it reminds him of who she was, and who he continues to be because of her. “I still eat it,” he says. “And every time I do, it reminds me of everything that was beautiful about that time. I think that’s exactly what she would’ve wanted too.”

The Chutney Only He Made

Monika Manchanda is a food writer and consultant who lost her father in January, six years ago. In the months that followed, she found herself drawn to the foods he loved. Not just to eat them, but to cook them. It became her way of staying close. There was one chutney—a simple green pudina chutney—that only he made at home. No one else ever touched it. For months after he passed, she couldn’t bring herself to make it. When she finally did, more than a year later, it felt like a quiet kind of healing. Like she was ready to let herself miss him without falling apart. She also remembers the last real meal he ate. Her dal makhani, slow-cooked for 16 hours, served during a December visit to Bengaluru just before his health began to decline. It’s still hard for her to eat it now. But when she does, it takes her back to that evening — when he smiled, ate well, and asked for more. Monika doesn’t believe grief food can be passed from one person to another. Everyone’s grief is different. But she does believe in cooking for people. In asking what they miss, and making that. Because sometimes, the best way to say “I’m here” is with a meal that feels like home.

Kadhi For The Women Who Raised Me

Saniya Mirwani is a filmmaker and writer living between Mumbai and New York. In 2022, just before Diwali, she lost her paternal grandmother while studying abroad. Her phone was on airplane mode that night. By the time she found out, the cremation had already taken place. In the silence that followed, she found herself at Kailash Parbat, a Sindhi restaurant that reminded her of home. She ordered Sindhi kadhi, the dish her grandmother made often, and the same one her maternal grandmother had cooked just before passing away. Eating it felt like being with both of them again. Even though the restaurant version had tomato, something they would have disapproved of, it made her smile. She could almost hear them complaining about how it was made “all wrong”. That bowl of kadhi did more than fill her up. It brought her back to Sunday afternoons, to family tables, to the women who showed their love through food. She ate it with her hands, the way she always did at home, and in doing so, felt just a little less alone.

Photographer credit: Adeem Lakhani

Fried Chicken On The Way Home

Aditya Kidambi is a chef of Smash Guys, a burger brand based in Bengaluru. But before that, he was a culinary student in Australia, living through long shifts, empty apartments, and a period that felt quietly difficult. Grief, for him, wasn’t loud. It came from burnout, isolation, and the exhaustion of doing too much with too little time to feel. And when it got too heavy, he ordered fried chicken. Sometimes from KFC, often from Leon. Always hot, crunchy, and exactly the same. It wasn’t sentimental. It wasn’t about taste. It was about routine. About getting through the day. On nights when everything felt too big to process, that brown paper bag felt grounding. It made things feel manageable. He still eats fried chicken. It reminds him of who he was back then — young, tired, trying to make it work. Not every comfort has to be tender. Some just need to be reliable.

Soup, As My Mother Would Make It

Joonie Tan is a pastry chef and educator based in Bengaluru, known for her work at Lavonne Academy and Kopitiam Lah. But before she taught others how to bake, she found herself relearning how to care for herself. In her early twenties, Joonie was living away from home, overwhelmed by the weight of adulthood and the quiet ache of being far from everything familiar. It wasn’t a single incident that brought on the grief, but a slow, steady loneliness. And in that loneliness, she turned to ABC soup. She made it the way her mother used to — carrots, potatoes, onions, and bones slowly simmered until the broth was deep and comforting. Each spoonful felt like a hug. It didn’t fix anything, but it helped her keep going. She still cooks it today, now for her husband and son, passing on that small, healing act of care.

A Vegetarian Tribute

Panchali Mahendra is a hospitality leader and writer who lost her father in 2016. In the months that followed, grief didn’t arrive in loud waves. It came quietly in the space he left behind. And in response, she did something simple. She stopped eating meat. Her father had been a committed vegetarian. Turning to the same foods he loved—aloo baingan, arhar dal, gobhi dum—felt like her way of honouring him. These weren’t elaborate meals, but cooking them became a ritual. Each bite carried a memory. Each plate was a way to hold him close. She still remembers how he’d light up at the dinner table, how he’d ask for more curry, always licking his fingers with joy. Even now, when she makes those same dishes, she feels him in the kitchen. Not gone. Just changed.

Chicken Cafreal And The First Thing I Ever Cooked

Nirmal Pillai is a comedian and content creator, known for his humour and honest storytelling. But long before he was making others laugh, he was standing alone in a tiny kitchen in Goa, trying not to burn the only thing that made him feel less lost—chicken cafreal. He had moved to Goa for an internship, and everything felt wrong. He didn’t like the work, he struggled to make friends, and his apartment had more cobwebs than comfort. He didn’t know what to do with the sadness, so he started cooking. Chicken cafreal was the first proper dish he ever made. It took him several tries. He bought the chicken nervously, found a recipe, and spent hours tweaking it until it tasted like something he’d order in a restaurant. When he brought it to work, someone asked where he had ordered it from—and that felt like a win. That one dish gave him something to hold on to. A sense of worth. A small reminder that he could do something well, even if nothing else made sense. He still makes it now. Not out of loneliness anymore, but out of love. It was the beginning of a long and surprising friendship with food.

Ramen For When It Got Too Quiet

Taneesha Mirwani is a content creator and strategist known for her wit, candour, and creative voice online. But even the most expressive people go quiet sometimes. For Taneesha, grief came not through a single loss, but through long stretches of loneliness. Living alone in a new city, surrounded by noise but feeling none of it, she turned to instant ramen. Not because it was her favourite meal, but because it was easy. Because it was there. She would eat it curled up on her couch, letting the heat from the broth blur the edges of a bad day. It was not indulgent, or nostalgic, or even particularly good. But it was warm. And that was enough. In a city that didn’t yet feel like home, that bowl of ramen reminded her she still knew how to take care of herself. Some days, that’s all grief asks of you.