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My grandmother never asked, "Have you eaten?" Instead, she would ask in Telugu:
"ఆత్మారాముడు శాంతించాడా?"
(Ātmārāmuḍu śāṁtiñcāḍā?)
Literally, it means, "Has your inner Rama calmed down?"
When I was little, I thought it was a strange question. Was she asking about God? Why would Rama be upset? It took me a while to understand that the "Atmarama" was the restless voice inside me, the one that grumbles when the stomach is empty and goes quiet only when it is fed.
So she wasn't asking about God at all. She was asking, in her own gentle way, whether I had eaten.
I love that she never made it sound like an order or a worry. A plain "Did you eat?" would have been enough, but she gave hunger a name and treated it with respect. A hungry stomach was something to be soothed, not ignored.
These days, when someone asks me if I've eaten, I think of her and smile. Nobody says it quite like she did.
Ātmārāmuḍu means "one who delights in the self." In everyday Telugu, it became a playful, respectful way to refer to the hunger inside us.
- co-written with Claude
