By Shreya Darji

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A piece about the struggles of self-love and believing that you are enough for your culture.

my feud with cumin seeds 
a betrayal to my culture

I was never impressed
by the smoked flavor
a tinge of cumin
Spoiling my curry 
or kadhi

Those brown pods in my kadhi
as I stir it
Again and again
Until the evil dark umber oval 
disappears from my sight 
And I close my eyes

Desperate not to see
or taste

If i could pretend that
it wasn’t there
I could pretend that 
the stabs of guilt
Didn’t plague my stomach
I was not Indian enough  
I told myself
Never will it be enough

I opened my eyes
started staring at the pods
How could a tiny thing like this
Make me hate myself 
So much.

Process

I was a mentee part of the Print 360, and during that program, I wrote about struggling with living up to my culture. I felt that I was not enough in my childhood, not good enough to represent the rich history of my culture. I connected deeply to my piece in the zine and I wanted to write another piece with the same theme. Something that’s always stuck in my mind was the flavor of cumin seeds. I never could like it, or even pretend I did. It was such a prevalent spice in Indian cuisine and whenever a dish had it, I felt myself become more guilty.

The piece is about my childhood struggle and symbolic of my struggle to live up to my culture. When writing the Print 360 piece along with this one, I felt a sense of inner peace, that I had finally resolved my internal struggle.