“O baaji (sister) buy this rose, I have not sold any since the evening baaji,” the street side flower seller pleaded at the traffic signal. I pretended to look at the super skinny models on the brightly lit hoardings. “Buy it baaji, Rs 50 only.” I paid no heed. The signal opened and my vehicle started to roll slowly. “O aunty khareed lo na,” (buy it) he said half heartedly, as the distance amongst us grew. Aunty? Ab toh kabhi nahin phool loongi bachay (I am so not buying the flower kid), the inner demon rebutted.
My personal definition of an aunty was of someone who was married (preferably for 10 years or more), kept her hair all tied up in a loose bun and had mastered the art of making scrumptious biryani. I possessed neither of these attributes. Aunty and uncle are often terms used to shame people in desi culture. Any girl over the age of 25 becomes an aunty for some, men with the slightest paunch can be uncles but, more importantly, these are expressions used to socially embarrass a mature outlook in a largely dishonest setup.
The world is also waging a war against aging; countless negative connotations come attached with it, which is ironic since nobody can stop age from advancing. The label of anti-aging (found everywhere) makes growing older appear like a big cyclone is directed towards us ready to pulp us down into an unrecognisable version of ourselves. We keep running away from something that is hard to escape.
Work places have cliques that are youth based and older professionals are kept at bay. Old is no longer gold, wisdom is not considered an intellectual currency and experience is disregarded in favour of all things flashy. Bodily changes that occur naturally with age become a burden to deal with because the media is persistent on how we do not enjoy our physical selves at any stage of life. Cellulite, crooked teeth, extra weight, frowning lines, wrinkles, thinning hair etc. can all be combatted with the help of these ‘aunty-aging’ creams and kicks.
We are either purchasing products labeled as being whitening or anti-aging. I bet products without either of these labels have a hard time selling themselves. These gimmicks are only there to satisfy one psychologically so that we go “haan haan dekho younger toh lag rahi hoon uno dhone ke baad is face-wash se” (yes, I am appearing younger after using this face-wash). As society too we adopt brutal attitudes and use age as a means to devalue people. We look at celebrities from yesteryear and exclaim about their transformations, making strong comments about his/her changing form and forgetting that we too do not look like our former selves anymore.
The body ought to be viewed primarily as an outfit that houses organs because, as the years go by, the little aches and pains that we experience should preempt us to honour the enormity of this life machine but, alas, we see it as a cosmetic tool only. Our savageness is not limited to others; we are unkind to ourselves as well. At parties women avoid the desserts’ table as if it were laced with a strong laxative. The need to look like our college selves eats into our bones slowly. I would not want to be the person I was in university — the lessons imparted by life since then are too invaluable to undo. Why would I want to look like that?
A woman usually gets written off once she enters her late twenties and, in all fairness, men today also have to compete with models possessing six pack abs with access to the best trainers and nutrionists (besides photoshop), which the aam admi (common man) cannot afford, hence photo filters come in handy. The receding hairline is a sensitive topic with most males and long lines for hair transplants are a testimony to this. He too fears being addressed as an uncle. We are always dissatisfied with our appearance, in every decade and year of our living.
The societal compulsion to resemble a blooming flower seeps into our psyche somehow. My face puts on three kilogrammes every other day so only top angles make the cut for my selfie. And I know this self-consciousness affects a lot of us so much so that we cannot really look at ourselves in the mirror without finding flaws, flaws that society or media have told us to look for otherwise we may not have a big issue with them. The pressure to look a certain way extracts zest from our lives besides costing an arm and a leg. Pretty soon we may also see crowd funding appeals for botox and tummy tucks from wives who want to avoid being told they have started looking like their husband’s mother after childbirth.
Desi society also strongly discourages relationships where the female partner is older than the male, all in fear of the log kya kahenge (what will people say) syndrome. In retrospect, medieval Islam dealt with age differences in a more dignified and progressive manner. Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) married Hazrat Khadija who was 15 years older than him, besides being a widow, and it is through her only that his lineage continues. But we are only concerned with what Mr Tayyab and Mansoora khala (aunt) will think of us.
People are not assembly line products; our physical imperfections should in fact be appreciated for they give us our distinct visual identities. Every individual is like a unique plant that will flower, bend and grow based on nurture and nature. Let us be a little forgiving with ourselves and not ashamed of our shape whose only constant is change.
Anti-aging products should be re-coined as pro-aging because maturity is not a taboo thing and looking our best should not automatically translate into looking 10 years younger. It is time to look in the mirror and make peace with our physicality, to eat without guilt and to smile our widest without worrying about deepening those naso-labial folds.
Life is a limited edition really; death is the only promise made to us and it will catch up anytime. In essence, being older or younger is relative to how much time we have on earth. If I will live until I am 70 then I am young now but if my life is only till 35 years then I am quite old in my timeline.
Sincerely, not your aunty.
The writer is a freelance columnist