Poetry on the Plate: Lavana Rasa

Just Enough Salt – Not too much. Not too little. Just enough to say everything

What’s Stirring?

Lavana rasa is the quiet, grounding taste — the one that lingers beneath everything else. Not flashy like spice, not bright like sour — just essential. It’s the taste of presence. Of things — and people — who show up again and again, not with grandeur, but with consistency.

This rasa often appears in poems that honour the unspoken: a parent’s daily gesture, a routine act of love, a dish that’s been simplified over time but still carries emotional weight. Salt, like love, isn’t usually named. But you know when it’s right. And you always know when it’s missing.

Featured Poem: Just Enough Salt

My mother’s sambar has turned softer —
no longer tangy, spicy, or thick.
Tamarind now replaced by tomatoes,
like her pattupudavais swapped for cotton sarees.

The spice has faded,
like her vanishing desires.
The sambar grown thinner,
like her frail, quiet frame.

Yet when she serves me sambar,
after two years abroad,
the taste of home
returns in the salt —
just right.

Her love, undramatic,
flows not through grand gestures,
but in the proportions
of the everyday.

What’s Beneath the Taste?

Salt as Steadfast Love

Salt becomes a metaphor for love that’s consistent and grounding. The kind of care that doesn’t announce itself — but you always know when it’s missing.

Ingredients as Identity

Tomatoes replacing tamarind. Cotton replacing silk. These small changes show us a woman who has aged, adapted, softened. But not disappeared.

Thinning Sambar, Thinning Body

There’s a quiet ache in how her sambar has grown thinner — not just in texture, but in vitality. Her frail frame mirrors the thinning broth.

The Familiar in the Ordinary

After years away, the daughter returns to find the dish different — and yet, the salt is still just right. It is through flavour, not words, that the mother says: “I still love you like always.”

Writing Prompts: “The Ordinary That Held Me”

Write a poem that honours subtle acts of care — gestures that weren’t loud, but linger.

Prompt Themes:

• A dish you were served again and again, quietly.
• A daily ritual that held emotional weight (packing lunch, oiling your hair, folding clothes).
• A homecoming after long years, where something had changed — but something else remained steady.
• A parent, grandparent, or caregiver who never said much — but showed up through action.

Starting Line Ideas:

“I didn’t notice it then. I do now.”Writing Prompt: “The Ordinary That Held Me”

“It wasn’t spicy anymore, but…”

“She no longer made it the old way, yet…”

“The proportions had shifted, except for…”

“Nothing looked the same — except the way it tasted.”

“A pinch of salt, and suddenly I was eight again.”

“Even her silence had flavour.”

“She stirred in something more than spice.”

Tips for Lavana Poetry

Let small things carry big weight.
A pinch of salt. A measured act. A casual word. Use the small to say the unsaid.

Use contrast in textures and tones.
Soft vs. sharp. Strong past vs. fading present. These deepen the rasa.

Let the final image be quiet but whole.
Don’t end on drama. Let it linger — like the aftertaste of home-cooked food.

Avoid declarations. Show, don’t summarize.
Instead of “Her love never changed,” show how — like in “the salt was just right.”

Final Taste

Salt never tries to steal the spotlight — yet it’s the one thing that ties it all together. Lavana rasa reminds us that love is often made not of grand moments, but of proportion, care, and familiarity.

Even when life changes — the ingredients, the body, the home — some part of love always stays just right.

Try the prompt?

Write your own poem and share it in the comments or email it to me at promisingpoetry5@gmail.com
The best ones will be featured in the Collaborative Poetry section — where shared words find their flavour.

Written as part of the #BlogchatterFoodFest