Before Self-care

Before self-care became a thing — a hashtag, a routine, a reminder on your phone — we were already doing it. We just didn’t know it needed a name.

Ours happened mostly on Sundays.

Sunday mornings in our house began with the oil bottle. Not the chic glass dropper bottles you now see on Instagram — ours came in a sturdy plastic bottle that had clearly survived three generations of hairlines.

Someone — usually moms — would sit us down on the floor like we were about to attend a very serious meeting.

And then began the oiling.

Not the gentle spa-style tapping you see in “hair care routines”. No. This was a full-commitment head massage. The kind where your scalp was vigorously negotiated with until it agreed to cooperate.

The oil — usually coconut — would travel confidently from scalp to forehead to occasionally… eyebrows.

Your hair would be divided into strict, geometrical partitions that would make a mathematician proud.

And then came the tight braids.

The logic was simple:

If your eyes aren’t slightly stretched upwards, the braid is not tight enough.

And just when you thought the spa treatment was over, the kitchen chemistry lab opened.

Because Sunday was also the day mothers decided our faces needed “improvement.”

Out came mysterious bowls of things we had absolutely not asked for.

Besan.

Haldi.

Malai.

All mixed together with great confidence.

We were then instructed to sit still while this slightly alarming yellow paste was applied generously to our faces.

It smelled like the kitchen. It looked like breakfast batter. And it was apparently going to make us “glow”.

We would sit there with stiff faces, afraid to smile because the pack would crack like dry land in summer.

But the real luxury of Sundays arrived later.

After lunch.

Lunch itself was never light. Because Indian mothers firmly believe that if a child is sent to nap after a modest meal, civilization may collapse.

So you ate properly.

Then you were told the most confusing instruction of childhood:

“Go lie down.”

Not sleep.

Just… lie down.

The fan whirring above, curtains drawn halfway, the house falling into that slow Sunday silence.

Inside, you’d drift somewhere between sleep and daydreams — waking occasionally to the smell of someone cutting mangoes in the kitchen.

And when you finally wandered out, there they were.

Steel plates full of sliced mangoes.

Not neatly cubed fruit bowls like today — these were full slices, juice running down your wrists, the seed waiting patiently at the end like the grand finale.

The rule was simple.

You eat the slices politely first.

And then someone hands you the seed.

Which you attack with the dedication of a hungry squirrel.

No one called it wellness.

No one posted it as a routine.

But somehow, in those slow Sundays filled with oil massages, homemade face packs, afternoon naps, and mangoes, we felt more rested than any expensive spa day today.

Maybe self-care didn’t need a name back then.

It just needed a Sunday, a plate of mangoes, and someone who insisted you sit still for five minutes while they oiled your hair and applied a face pack you didn’t ask for.

And honestly, if someone offered that today…

I’d cancel all my plans.