You are scrolling through your phone when an old family photo appears. It’s your grandmother, sitting beside a plate of food. Suddenly, you remember her voice: “Arey, thoda aur kha!”

Or maybe it’s not a photo. It’s the smell of puran poli, a particular dal, or that one sweet your grandfather loved. One bite, and you’re not just eating anymore. You’re remembering. Funny, isn’t it? We can forget what we ate last Sunday, but one familiar taste can take us straight back to our childhood.

Food has its own memory system. And during Pitru Paksha, that connection becomes even more meaningful. When families observe Shraddha and offer food in remembrance of their ancestors, it raises an interesting question: why food? Why not just a photograph, a prayer, or a few words? Perhaps because food has always been one of the ways we express love, care and belonging. Think about it. In many Indian homes, “I love you” often arrives in a different form: “Jevlas ka?” A parent saves your favourite dish. A grandmother makes something special when you visit. At family gatherings, the conversation may begin with relatives catching up, but somehow everyone eventually ends up around the dining table.

Food is not just about filling the stomach. It is also about making someone feel at home. And when that person is no longer around, the food they loved can become a reminder of everything they meant to us.

More than a ritual, a connection

In Hindu traditions, Shraddha is a ritual performed to honour and remember ancestors. Food offerings have an important place in many forms of this observance, though practices differ across families and regions.

Historically, these rituals have a much longer story than we might imagine. In his book Feeding the Dead: Ancestor Worship in Ancient India, historian of religion Matthew R. Sayers traces the development of ancestral rites in early Indian traditions, including the Shraddha ritual. His research shows how these practices developed over time and became part of domestic religious life. For those who observe Shraddha, the offering carries a sacred meaning. But even if we look at it from a cultural perspective, there is something worth noticing: the ritual creates a moment to remember people who shaped a family’s life.

Imagine a family preparing a traditional meal. Someone remembers how their grandfather liked his food. Someone else shares a story about a great-grandmother they never met. A younger family member asks, “Who was that?” And suddenly, a name that might have remained forgotten becomes part of a conversation.

Ek ritual, aur uske through family history ki ek chhoti si class without anyone opening a textbook.

That is one way traditions travel across generations: through stories, food, habits and shared moments.

Science has something interesting to say about food and memory

There is a reason why the smell of a familiar dish can feel so powerful.

A 2023 review published in Current Opinion in Psychology explored what researchers call the “Proust effect” the ability of smells and tastes to bring back personal memories. The researchers found that memories triggered by food and smell can feel especially familiar, emotionally meaningful and connected to our sense of self.

In simple words, the smell of your grandmother’s kitchen may do something that a hundred old photographs cannot: make a memory feel present.

This does not prove the spiritual meaning of Shraddha. Science cannot establish whether an offering reaches an ancestor in the religious sense. But it can help explain why food is such a powerful way for human beings to remember.

There is also research on rituals and grief. In a 2014 study, psychologists Michael Norton and Francesca Gino conducted experiments on mourning rituals and different kinds of loss. Participants who reflected on rituals or performed new ones reported lower levels of grief. The researchers suggested that rituals may help partly by restoring a sense of control after loss. The study was not about Shraddha specifically, but it offers one possible explanation for why acts of remembrance can matter emotionally.

So, while faith and science answer different questions, both invite us to think about the human need to remember.

What do we actually inherit?

Let’s be honest: most of us may not know the full story of our great-grandparents. We may not know where they lived, what they struggled with, or what their daily lives looked like.

But we might know that our family makes a particular dish every Diwali. That someone always insists on serving guests before eating. That a certain phrase, habit or recipe has travelled through generations.

These small things are also a kind of inheritance.

We often think inheritance means property, jewellery or family wealth. But what about the recipes we learn, the language we speak, the values we practise and the stories we repeat?

Aplyala sagla past mahit nasel, pan tyache kahi tukde aaplya everyday life madhye astat.

And perhaps this is where Pitru Paksha becomes relevant even to younger people who may not know every ritual or follow every custom. You don’t have to understand an entire family tree to recognise that someone before you helped shape the life you live today.

Not every family observes Pitru Paksha in the same way. Some follow detailed rituals, some keep things simple, and others connect with the period through remembrance. The point is not to judge how someone practices or whether they do.

It is to ask: Who are the people whose lives continue to influence ours?

Maybe this year, alongside the ritual, ask your parents or grandparents about the person being remembered. What did they love? What were they like? What is one thing our family still does because of them?

You might discover a story you had never heard.

Because the food offered during Shraddha may hold a sacred meaning for those who perform it. But it can also remind us of something deeply human: we are made not only from our own experiences, but from the people, stories, and traditions that came before us. And sometimes, the simplest way to remember someone is to prepare the dish they loved and tell their story while everyone is at the table.

Some memories don’t need a screen to stay alive. Sometimes, all it takes is one familiar taste.