Saturday, March 17, 2012

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen

Not exactly the most original title, borrowed from a PG Wodehouse book title, who by the way is one of my favourite authors. If you have ever read any of the Bertie Wooster stories you would be familiar with his two aunts, Aunt Dahlia and Aunt Agatha. Aunt Dahlia, the one with the loud voice, is the easygoing one who runs a magazine named Milady’s Boudoir, and Bertie once contributed an article “What The Well Dressed Man Is Wearing”. (The only instance we ever see Bertie actually doing anything that resembles work.)

And then there is his Aunt Agatha, the strong willed intimidating one who is always out to reform Bertie and trying to get him married. In the words of Bertie “My Aunt Agatha who eats broken bottles and is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon" and “I know that London is a biggish city, but, believe me, it isn't half big enough for any fellow to live in with Aunt Agatha when she's after him with the old hatchet.”

Is it only me, or do you, like Bertie, too have formidable, terrifying super-power-possessing aunts? My father has five sisters, my mother has four, and then they have their cousins and second cousins, so you could see that I have an abundance of aunts.  Each one with her own peculiarity. You have the extremely easygoing ones, the uber strict ones, the talkative ones, the ones who never talk, the unmarried ones, and so on.  And like all aunts, they sometimes poke their noses in our family’s affairs, which is completely understandable because that’s how God made aunts. With long noses that can smell trouble and sniff out marital problems. With hawk-like eyes that can spot the cobwebs in your house and the cracks in your washbasin. With industrious hands that will move your house plants around (never mind that you move them back once they leave). With extensive vocabulary which is used to advise the badly behaved children of the whole clan. (If a committee of aunts summon you for a chat, you’d better run for the hills!)

Don’t misunderstand me now. I respect my aunts, all of them. My mother’s sisters would come and help us out when we were screaming, fighting, dirty little kids. They were still unmarried then, which means they were uprooted from their social and personal lives and dumped into our messy noisy world. A great sacrifice, if you ask me.

I have been an aunt all my life. My eldest nephew, the son of a cousin, was born the same year as I was, but unfortunately didn’t live through infancy. The title was then passed on to his younger brother, who is two years younger than I am. And since then there has been an endless stream of nephews and nieces arriving, the most recent one just three weeks ago, my younger brother’s second daughter. She was expected to arrive on my birthday and I prayed that she would, but she was born a week early. But she is still my special girl.

And it doesn’t end there. The nephews and nieces get married and have children of their own, which makes me – horror of horrors – a grand aunt! Now most of the N&N’s are grown up now, and are no longer amused when you talk about their childhood, how they would always come over to your house, sometimes with their friends, how they would go straight to the biscuits box, and such other tales.

Having said all that, I think I have earned the right to be finicky and fussy and be a general busybody, admonish children at random, be critical of the younger generation, and be a sourpuss most of the time.  Aunts, after all, aren't gentlemen.

10 comments:

  1. What a good read. After all these years of blog posts on just about every issue under the sun, you managed to come up with something new yet totally relate-able to us all. Oh yeah, aunts. I have two still in as close touch as they were in my growing up years, and sadly, they're getting old. Not just physically but getting badly mal-adjusted with new times stuff. Not pretty but c'est la vie, I guess. Btw, if I didn't know you personally, judging from your last paragraph I'd have pegged you down to be around 60 - at least. Hilarious.

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    1. I started this post a long a time ago, but was unable to finish it, I dont know why, maybe the time wasn't right.
      Yeah my style's been called "old" by a few people. I comfort myself by saying I have an old soul :)

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  2. Come to think of it, my aunts are the only ones who call me "Mate". You made me realize the fret and fuss aunts went through, you AUNTIES rock!

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    1. Yayyyy! Someone who appreciates aunts! If only every nephew was as thankful and nice as you are, the world would be a much much better place :)

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  3. i don't know much about my aunts, i've about 7 aunts but, never had a time to know them well. I don't know why, maybe i didn't like the look in their face when they saw me. And i've never been called an aunt, so, i didn't really know how to comment on the writings. Whoaaa, best not to comment on it. Me thinks. :p

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    1. Aunts are hard and tough on the outside (maybe the reason you've never liked your aunts) and soft and sweet on the inside (like melted chocolate). Try knowing them better, and I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised!

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  4. 'Aunts Aren't Gentlemen' i read it long ago and your mention of PG Wodehouse makes me long to read the works again. Gone are the days and nights when you could afford to curl up with a delightful fiction...

    You really seem to be a chronic aunt, starting right from the toddler stage. Guess you know all the tricks of being an aunt.

    O yes, my aunts are all gone, and i'm now an aunt and a grand aunt too. I don't seem to be too typical, i'm FB friends with my nieces and grand nephew - they invited me, can you believe it? Would we have done such a thing to our aunts and grandaunts in our days? What think?

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    1. To be honest I don't remember what the story was about, but it's a guarantee that it is funny, as usual.

      Being an aunt is not an easy thing. You want to reprimand the kids but you don't have that authority, that natural license to scold which a parent has. The best thing to be is a cool aunt, something like Cool Aunt Phoebe in Friends :)

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  5. One Aunt I know IS a gentleman!! When we were much younger in what was then Calcutta, there was this humorous guy who used to call one of his friend, 'Ka Ni'. We really thought that was extremely funny. When ever I see this gentleman,even now, I still mentally think of him as Ka Ni.

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    1. What a sense of humour that guy must have! That reminds of all those "Ka Ni Dari" jokes hahah

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