Thali- The bigger plate in Indian households reserved for the patriarchally privileged.

I am 10 or 12 years old and my mother calls out to me for dinner. I come downstairs and she tells me to serve the food to my father first.

This has always been a trick. When will I stop falling for it? Damn!

I pick the Thali and lay down the smaller plate on it for the curry, followed by the pickle on the side of it, the dry vegetable on the other side of the plate when my mother exclaims, “We don’t put the pickle and the vegetable far away from each other. It destroys the aesthetic of the thali.”

“Damn, aesthetic”, I think to myself.

I envy men at this point in my life.

What would I not give to grow up and become a man? When distant relatives ask me what I want to be when I grow up, I say, “an astronaut”, but I’m thinking, “a man”.

I want to work and earn money. I want to command respect and have my fucking Thali be decorated twice a day by someone else.

I want the privilege. Spoiler alert: I’m still starving for it.

The next day, I decide I will eat in the Thali today. As I enter the kitchen and extend my hand toward the lower shelf where the Thalis are systematically arranged, my grandmother exclaims, “Grab the smaller plate for yourself because your uncle will need that one. He hasn’t eaten yet and the other Thalis are all used.”

I know that my family has another stash of Thalis somewhere because they magically have more when other men are visiting. I sigh and stick to the smaller plate.

Fast-forward 13 years later, I am married. My mother-in-law calls me to have dinner. It’s still the code language to serve food to the patriarchs first- my father-in-law and my (now ex-) husband.

My ex-husband knows better so he walks into the kitchen to pick his Thali up.

I am a working woman. I run my business successfully. I work with companies around the world. I deliver content for their content marketing initiatives. I have a following of 20k+ followers on LinkedIn. I earn well and support this household and our lifestyle.

A woman can earn all the riches in the world and still never be respected well enough. A man can warm the couch day in and day out in half-pants and still command respect, I learn over time.

Today, every time I pull out the Thali, I feel exposed. I feel uncomfortable. Like my skin is crawling. The 10-year-old in me is still afraid that at any time now my privilege will be pointed at and ridiculed and even taken away.

I eat in the Thali. Heck, some days, I even eat first. Before the patriarchs! My in-laws make me believe that this is a part of their open-mindedness, letting me eat before they do.

That will be my shitty consolation prize for 3 years of married martyrdom at the hands of patriarchy and domestic abuse before I divorce the sucky institution that patriarchy is.

Thank you. For letting me eat in the Thali.