Anyone Can Be an Auntie: It's All About the State of Mind

Years ago, I gave out stickers at my parents’ Diwali celebration, sheets of goofy-looking wild animals I had purchased impulsively at a pharmacy a few days earlier. One moment, the kids at the party played sweetly with ancient stuffies from when my siblings and I were little; the next, a short-lived but intense scuffle took place over who got the lion sticker or the zebra. At the end of the night, my brother’s eldest, who was then around 7, affixed a glittery giraffe to my ancient iPhone’s plastic case. “You can look at this and know I’m thinking of you,” she said. I still have that case. It’s worthless as phone protection — it no longer fits any models in circulation — but in the currency of childhood affection, it’s too valuable to toss. I grew up in a Desi family where all adults were aunties (or uncles), regardless of biological connections. I learned five different terms for “aunt” in Hindi (generally with the respectful “ji” appended): masi (mother’s sister), mami (mother’s brother’s wife), bhua (father’s sister), chachi (father’s younger brother’s wife) and tai (father’s older brother’s wife). The specificity of these terms points to how important (and hierarchical) South Asian family connections often are. They also caused me a minor calamity last Diwali, when I rushed writing names on envelopes containing cash for my cousins’ kids and accidentally wrote “Love, Maya Bhua” where I should have written “Maya Masi.” (I think we all agreed it was what was inside that counted, in this case $20.) Without such precise labeling, “auntie” can be a purposefully, and delightfully, general term for an older woman in your community. Even if she is not a direct relative, even if you’re not sure you’re related, even if she is a friend your parents haven’t seen since the 1980s, your auntie gets respect and some measure of affection. In return she gives love and attention, not to mention gifts, money, food or sometimes eye rolls or lectures. While Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York was excoriated during his campaign for calling his father’s cousin an aunt, a multicultural coalition of “Aunties for Zohran” went on to help him get elected. For me, auntiehood accumulates in small moments. Once, when I visited my sister’s city, I saw “Inside Out 2” with her 11-year-old, who drank a turquoise blue slushie bigger than her face. Afterward we giggled in my hotel room as she leaped between the beds. Then she climbed onto the windowsill in her pajamas and wrapped her arms around her knees, gazing at the buildings sparkling in the dark. I looked at her with that dorky expression aunties sometimes get, watching children growing into the vastness of the world. We aunties aspire to teach, in ways that shift as kids grow. When my mother’s parents traveled the globe doing dental work in refugee camps, my nanima (maternal grandmother) often sent me postcards. Now when I travel, I sometimes send postcards to the children in my life. My brother’s youngest used to read them back to me when I visited (or, at least, she read back the one with glaring grammatical errors). Last time I visited my brother, my most recent postcards lay forgotten on a counter near the entrance. But his youngest asked me to show her how to knit. My phone is stickerless these days, but I know that his eldest, now a teenager, is thinking of me when I see she has texted me a “Parks and Rec” gif. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.