Ask Auntyji

Dear Auntyji

I am a bit confused about my partner Sunny. I love him dearly, and thought he was the one until an incident from a few weeks ago. My adored 3-yearold nephew, who is my chand ka tukda, my jaan and praan and everything in between, adores me too. I am his beloved maasi. Four weeks ago, we visited little Izu, and after 30 minutes of drawing and colouring, he brought out his treasure chest to show me. In it was a collection of coins from different parts of the world and he held one aloft and told me that it was his ‘bestest piece’. This was a coin from Korea, I think, with a hole in the middle. He said he liked it because it was funny. And then, Izu showed me his ‘second bestest coin’, which was from Tibet, and then gave it to me as a gift. I nearly cried, because his gesture was so sincere and heartfelt. I noticed Sunny looking at Izu’s Korean coin with interest, and when I asked him why, he said it would be a good ball marker for golf. Anyway, we got home and a week later, when I was speaking to Izu, he tearfully told me that his special coin was lost. Poor bachcha. I was so sad I almost cried. I can’t stand my nephew being unhappy. Anyway, a few days after that, I saw the same coin in Sunny’s wallet, and when I questioned him, he admitted to taking Izu’s coin! I was so surprised that I dropped the jar of imli chutney on my foot. We had a heated argument, at the end of which Sunny said he could not understand the big deal about the coin. In fact, as late as last week, Sunny kept on insisting that he had done nothing wrong and that Izu would get over it. Aunty, ye kis kism ki insaan se main mohabbat karti hoon? Every night, my nephew’s tear stained face appears before me, and my heart breaks over and over. At night, I feel like crying and I can’t understand why. Meanwhile, Sunny knows I am upset about this and has volunteered to sneak the coin back into Izu’s treasure chest, but only because he thinks this might make me happy. He cannot understand why I think what he did was wrong in the first place. Can you please tell me whether my thinking is impaired because of my love for Izu?

Dear Auntyji

Toss of a coin

Please help me Auntyji, I am quite distraught.

Auntyji says

Arre, ye kaise shaitaan se aap apna dil laga rahi hain? I am most concerned that this man, who you say you love so much, has no sense of right and wrong and has stolen something, yes, stolen something from a nadaan Ye bahut hi zaleel harkat thi and my dear, you need to take a good, long look and a deep think about spending your life with someone who steals from children. Honestly, I cannot imagine why he would do something like this, and then not to see the problem with his actions. Today, he steals from your beloved nephew, who knows what this man will do tomorrow. So, I think your values are mismatched - and if this badmaash cannot see the khudgarzi of his actions, then you need to reconsider whether this man is for you. Think about it like this. Someone did something wrong by your chand ka tukda. If you don’t stand up for your nephew’s right, then who will? Dekho, mistakes sub se ho jaata hai. Hum khuda ya farishtay to naheen hai, lekhin jab ek mistake is pointed out, and we refuse to see our unconscionable conduct, then our values and morals are lacking. And unfortunately, my little chamieli, aapka Sunny apna gira hua nature abhi se dikha raha hai aap ko. Today, it was a coin. Tomorrow, who knows. So, really, do you want to spend your life with someone like this? If all your family members knew what Sunny did, would they be proud of him and pleased with you that you have such a caring man as your saathi? I think not. Time to act, my dear gulabo. There are better aadmi than this out there.

To FB or not to FB

Auntyji says

In the last issue, I did not like what you said about people who post pictures of their babies on Facebook. You said that people put pictures of their ugly babies and other people lie and make nice comments. It’s not good that you say people have ugly babies. And it’s even worse that you think everyone makes polite but insincere comments on FB. How do you know this? And why do you say people’s babies are ugly?

What the hell? You’re upset with me for telling you the truth? Let’s just analyse this. So you go and post a picture of your baby on FB. Has anyone ever said your baby is ugly? Definitely not. And why not? Well, let’s analyse this - statistically. Have you seen how many ugly people there are in the world? And what makes you think that their babies would be beautiful? Not all babies are attractive, but more importantly, to their parents, their own babies are precious little beings - and they are biologically programmed not to see the flaws - such as Ganesh ears or mooli jaisa rang ya beetroot jaisa chehera. So, to ugly parents are ugly babies born. But the parents can’t see these deficiencies. Others can, but won’t express this because it’s impolite to do so. So when you post a picture of your chanda, your little shonu monu, your little pari on FB, people are compelled to post nice comments, because not to do so is impolite. And most people would rather be insincere, than impolite. This is how human nature works. Now, if all babies were attractive, the world would be full of beautiful peoples. All women would be Ash Bachhan and all men would be John Abraham. Ok, maybe not John Abraham, but definitely Prateik Babbar. But how many Prateiks do you see when you walk around in Parramatta? None. Why? Because attractive people are rare. And you certainly won’t see them walking around in Parramatta buying haldi from the Indian grocery stores. Are you getting my point? So, you will find my voice of reason, especially about FB, a rare insight. It’s people like you who propagate the idea that FB is a worthy exercise. Ask yourself why all these people post comments about each other. Why are people validating their existence or their love for each other or the mindless minutiae of their lives on this forum, on FB? Because they are dull and they have no sense of self. So, I hereby declare again. People put up pictures of their babies on FB, and everyone says how cute, regardless of whether the baby is cute or not. How can it be that all babies are cute? They are not, but who will tell the parents. Maybe I will. Time for me to get an FB account. Tell me your details, nah, so I can be your FB friend.