She Ate First

Ambi, let me have my oats first. Then, you can drop me at Veni’s house on your way to the office.” She said it simply, as a matter of fact. In a culture where women always ate last, this sounded almost out of place.

Seetha Paati carried no guilt in leaving her husband, my Thatha, behind. He was rarely willing to leave his favourite sofa, while she went off to recharge herself at her daughter’s home. Before she left, she ensured his routine would not be disturbed, and through the day, she would check in over a phone call.

She had memorised the numbers of all those who mattered to her. “Rukmani, thallikko. I’ll make iluppa chatti dosai for the children myself,” she would say in the kitchen, and Rukmani, my mother and her daughter-in-law, would simply move aside with a smile, already half-expecting it. “I think I am getting a cold, let me make my kashayam before you start cooking.” “Ambi, enakku marundu venum da.” That evening, the medicine she had demanded would arrive promptly when my father, her son, fondly called Ambi, returned from his office.

There were times when her own daughters would tease her. “Amma, you and your oats first. At least pretend to serve Appa before you sit down.” Or in hushed voices, “Look at her, always thinking of herself first.” They said it laughingly, half in jest, half in mild disbelief. In a generation trained to equate sacrifice with virtue, her insistence on eating first looked different, almost rebellious.

Most women around her would wait until everyone had eaten before serving themselves. Meals were interrupted constantly, someone needing another dosa, a glass of water, coffee to be reheated, something forgotten in the kitchen. By the time they finally sat down, the food was often cold and the body already tired.

But Paati never seemed to believe that care for others required the complete abandonment of oneself. She would just smile and say, “If I don’t eat now, I won’t get time later.”

I learned my earliest lessons about self-care not from books or instruction, but by watching Seetha Paati. She would almost always eat first and then turn to tending to the family. Looking back, what they called “selfish” feels to me like self-respect.

She did not diminish her care for others. She strengthened it