She laughed, that full-bellied laugh he’d missed. “Then you made it exactly right. Your father’s first undhiyu was also terrible. That’s how you know it’s real.”

That night, he tried.

“Still terrible, beta,” she says, laughing.

One evening, he found a small box in his cupboard—unopened for years. Inside: a dusty packet of gota (fenugreek seeds), a hand-written recipe for undhiyu , and a note in his mother’s handwriting: “When you miss home, cook.”

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