It's hard to part with mum's food when you know that after the dabbas have been licked clean, you will only get the next consignment when you visit her, or she comes visiting. Pickles are a different story, though. Perfect additions to any meal, they are usually savoured in smaller quantities, have a longer shelf life, and therefore, allow for more generosity of heart.

That, and the fact that their pad in Mumbai is known as the "Dubai airport when you are flying Emirates" among theatrewallahs, where everyone invariably makes a stop, meant that the jars of homemade pork pickle that sisters and actor-producers Prerna and Preetika Chawla stocked in their kitchen would vanish before they knew it. And when their mother, Rithu Nanda, would visit them from Delhi, much of her time would be spent replenishing the pickle stock.