The Last Batch of Papads

In the sweltering summer of 2011, my mother, Nalini, had a ritual she followed every year: making papads. She would lay them out on white cotton cloths across the flat rooftop of our apartment building in Pune, a city that shimmered with heat and humidity. The building, called ‘Sunrise Residency,’ was an aging structure with creaking water pipes and a lift that often broke down. Our neighbor, Mrs. Kulkarni, had a habit of leaving her balcony door ajar, and sometimes we heard strange whispers from within, but we attributed them to her old radio.

My aunt, Shobha, was visiting from Nagpur that summer. She was my mother’s younger sister, a retired schoolteacher with a sharp tongue and a love for spicy pickles. She had a grown son, Rohan, who was away in the US, and a daughter, Meera, who had just started her first job in Bangalore. Shobha often complained about the heat in Pune but insisted on helping Nalini with the papads, claiming it reminded her of their childhood in a village near Nashik.

One afternoon, while the papads were drying on the rooftop, Shobha noticed a peculiar odor wafting from the neighboring building—a half-constructed, abandoned structure that had been sealed off for years after a construction accident. The smell was like burnt turmeric mixed with something sour. Nalini dismissed it as garbage from the nearby market, but Shobha grew uneasy. That evening, as they collected the dried papads, Shobha swore she saw a figure standing at the window of the abandoned building’s top floor, watching them. Nalini laughed it off, but Shobha’s face was pale.

That night, my mother woke to the sound of crackling, as if someone were frying papads. She walked to the kitchen and found the gas stove lit, but not the flame. The frying pan was empty, yet the oil in it was bubbling. She turned off the stove and noticed a line of small, greasy footprints leading from the kitchen door to the back balcony, disappearing over the railing. She felt a chill and went back to bed, assuming she had left the stove on.

A week later, Shobha insisted on leaving early. She said the apartment was ‘heavy’ with something. On her last day, as the papads were being packed for her to take home, she saw a small, dark stain on one of them, like a fingerprint. She pointed it out to Nalini, who shrugged and said it was just a burnt spot. Shobha refused to take the papads, claiming they were tainted. She left, and my mother was left with an entire batch of papads that tasted oddly bitter, despite using the same recipe she always used.

After Shobha left, strange things began to happen in our apartment. We would hear the rustle of paper in the kitchen, the smell of frying oil at odd hours, and sometimes a soft, guttural humming that sounded like an old song. One evening, my father found a small, shiny object under the refrigerator—a single earring that didn’t belong to anyone in the family. It was old-fashioned, with a green stone that seemed to glow in the low light.

My mother became obsessed with that earring. She would hold it and murmur, ‘It’s hers, it’s hers.’ We asked whose, but she would just shake her head. Then, during a power cut, we gathered in the living room with candles. My mother put the earring on the table, and we watched as it began to vibrate, then slide across the polished wood toward the kitchen. We followed it, and it stopped at the back door, which was slightly ajar. Through the gap, we saw a woman in a white sari standing near the abandoned building, holding a plate of papads. She gestured for us to come, and my mother stepped toward the door, but my father pulled her back.

We moved out of that apartment a month later. The earring was lost in the chaos. But even now, when the summer heat rises and the smell of grilled spices fills the air, my mother pauses, staring into the distance, and whispers, ‘The papads were her last. We should have fed her.’ We never found out who she was, but the last batch of papads, the ones we left behind, were never eaten. They were just there, in the kitchen sink, soaking in water, slowly dissolving, as if they were meant to disappear.

Years later, I read that the abandoned building was once a hospice for mentally ill women. One patient, a woman known for her love of cooking, had died there in 2004, leaving behind a single earring and a journal filled with recipes for papads. The last entry read: ‘For those who taste, remember me. For those who forget, I will come back. I am always hungry.’ We never ate papads again in our family. But on certain nights, I still hear that crackling sound, and the smell of burnt turmeric drifts through my window. I look up, and in the darkness, I see a woman in a white sari, holding a plate of steaming papads, waiting for us to take one.