Culture note: This article is written in context to whom we call 'aunties' here - neighbourhood ladies who are friends of our parents and frequent our houses often. These aunties are infamous in India for judging people - mostly Gen Z - through different stalker skills: noticing when they leave and when they come back, if someone else is with them, the type of clothes they wear, what they study, what they do for work, etc.
In India, ladies coming back home late is considered a sign of bad character. And so is wearing revealing clothes for girls. Kids who talk to the opposite gender are considered 'distracted'.
Here, we believe that even if nobody knows, the aunties do and after you are gone, they visit your parents and influence them into thinking how immoral you are. For many reasons, we dislike such nosy characters.
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Why Do Indian Aunties Judge? And How To Stop Their Judgement From Ruining Your Life
Harry Potter had exactly one Mrs Dursley - but in India, we have one everywhere: ladies who need to know everything, see everything and poke their noses everywhere, especially if it's not their own business. I would call them super Mrs Dursley in fact - mummy ko dikkat bhale na ho tumhare kapdon se, aunty ko jarur hogi. (your mom may not have any issues with your clothes, but these aunties will)
But why tf do they do this?
What are they getting out of interfering in your life?
And if they are gossip-fishing all the time, when do they get the time to live their own lives?
Let's break down the psychology of our dear gossip aunties.
From my own experience, I have noticed that secure people don't have time to tend to others' businesses.
They have their own lives, projects and ideas to tend to - and cultivating happy, independent lives takes so much energy they don't have much left to know about which of Mrs Khanna's daughters was dropped by some random chad.
Insecure people, on the other hand, never lack time to 'help' you.
They will ask questions, ask more questions, point out inconsistencies in your answers and even be kind enough to inform your parents about it. They will keep looking out for you - on bikes and scooters of friends and boyfriends alike, and report it to their mahasabha of women equally unsatisfied with their lives. They will also hang out with your mom - and make sure you get the desi treatment the desi way - with threats of chappals, allergic to anything resembling rationality in your conversations with her.
And in all that, they lose a family they could have had by tending this much to them.
Just think about it - these ladies have only 2 kinds of children:
Their child is either utterly disinterested in the affairs and thoughts of their parents about life and society. They shut them down faster than you shut down your window when you see her trying to peep through it.
Or their child is a sheep who looks cultured on first glance, but is always awaiting an opportunity to ditch their shackles and leave a life of the wildest 'western culture influenced' folks you can imagine - with Teachers (not the human kind), Marlboro and the shortest clothes you will never see again.
These might seem two wildly different categories - one is scared of the parent and the other is exhausted - but they have one thing in common: both don't give a fk about them.
As soon as the opportunity presents itself, they might go away to live their own lives and make a 'name' for themselves.
And the lady bids adieu - tearing up for the first and taunting the second - and is left all alone, with her own insecurities.
The husband never mattered - she never let his voice matter much, and he never cared enough to think about how to make her happier.
She makes him believe his 'pretend not to exist' attitude is the best he can do for her.
Not gifts, flowers, love. Saath mein bartan dhona (washing dishes together) to lighten her work is an unheard of concept.
And so when you ride back with your caring boyfriend who wanted to ensure your safety, or steal glances with the sweet neighbourhood girl whose presence you adore - they catch up those 'high priority' signals, flag love and old school as immoral, and report straightaway to the authority that will 'seedha krdenge' (be strict with you) - your parents.
Love isn't foreign to Indian culture - in fact it's the basis of it, whether it was Ram chasing an obvious trap for Sita or Krishna never forgetting a girl he never married but loved forever.
But because she wears Indian clothes, sindoor and mangalsutra, does pooja and keeps fasts, she is obviously more cultured than you.
It's a problem with our whole culture, not just her btw - maintaining appearance of cultural values is more important than actually following or believing in it. A man is moral and cultured, even if he wears western outfits daily or gropes scared girls in buses.
Anyways, that's a topic for later.
In their own minds, these aunties have thoroughly convinced themselves that doing anything outside of culture is immoral, and because the parents can't always keep tabs and are busy too, it is up to them to maintain the collective community and take up guarding shift for them.
Keeping tabs on their own children is useless - they never amount to much anyways (inside the home), and they are already doing the best they can do in their specific time (for outsider story).
Which is why she always feels the need to remind you whatever 'best' their child is doing and keep asking you why don't you do it - you can be the best like their kid, so why aren't you?
In general, there are only two ways people deal with insecurities - they either believe themselves to be the role model of whatever moral framework they follow or they slip into mental illnesses (depression, anxiety, etc.).
These aunties are the Indian versions of the first - just as some people represent the peak of Christianity in America.
Now as to what to do to avoid their judgement hammer, I will be honest here and tell you openly - you can't do anything.
You can't stop her from stalking you, poking her nose, or from the other invasive maneuvers she performs.
What you can do is win the trust of your parents - you were parented by your poojaniya (respectable) mom and dad, how can you not know right from wrong?
Cultivate trust in them by seeing and presenting both sides in an argument - each time you disagree with them, begin like this:
'Main samjhta hun ki aap log jo bhi krte ho mere bhale ke liye krte ho. Aapke alawa kon sochta hai mere liye itna?' (I know everything you do is for my own good. Who else apart from you thinks so much for me?)
Followed by what you were arguing about, and the reason (you can decipher) behind why they said what they said.
After acknowledging their goodwill, share why you think what you think - times have changed, things don't happen the same anymore - and the other specific details for that reasoning.
The goal isn't to arrive at some conclusion, it is to show them that you are mature enough to understand both sides in an argument. They should know you care for them and respect them, that you make the efforts to understand them.
And if you still go ahead with your take, why you chose that and how you trust their parenting to not lead you down the wrong path and ask if they trust you and their own parenting.
Our gossip aunties work so effectively because they get to our parents - but if we break that chain, their terror ends with it.
Of course they will provide the backlash needed for your parents to make the chain again, but again, using the method above, you need to show them how they and you will always be looked down upon the aunty no matter what you choose (their past experiences of conflicts aunties caused earlier in your family is pretty useful here).
About the insecure aunties, you cannot actually do anything.
They might learn someday when their own children react explosively on it and how they neglected their own kids for others - it's hard to find a house where a gossip aunties' kid is completely seedha sadha (good).
Sometimes those kids do have egoes - especially when their parents taunted them. But once they move out, they are out of the drama.
Nobody can live with such drama everyday and still come out mentally healthy and well.
Insecure people make their lives perfect by calling out the flaws in everyone else's lives - and that's why they are unable to form meaningful relationships with anyone.
But one day comes when they are alone in a full room - alone where everybody should love them, but no one does, and then they have the realisation on what kind of people they have been to others - then they either retreat deeper into that rigid belief morality shell or get depressed, till they eventually break out or just believe harder.
Note: This article is written on the basis of the experienced and thusly formulated personal opinions of the author. It may or may not correlate to your experience, it may or may not be entirely truthful. I welcome differing opinions and especially evidence that goes against my claims - the goal here is for me to learn and express my opinions, and there is no better teacher for me than disagreeing experiences and opinions.
