In Defence of Uncle

Uncle is a bad word these days. I don’t quite remember when it started, but one moment I was a child, forcing out an eloquent Namaste Uncle for my father’s friend; the next, I was listening to Faye Dsouza’s ‘Uncle, are you with us?’ As fast as that, uncle had become a bad word – a little something to be used for the dinosaurs living among us.

Their time on earth has been strange too, if you notice. Their life coincided with the fag end of 300 years of slow change and the early years of the internet big bang. They used PCOs and trunk calls in their childhood, landline phones in their thirties, Nokia headsets in their forties, Samsung smartphones at 50, Whatsapp and 55, and have recently discovered that Whatsapp and Facebook aren’t cool any more and that Whatsapp University is actually (also) a bad thing. Abhi to aaya tha, they wonder, itne jaldi out of fashion ho gaya? At 60, they now have to worry about the next new thing they will need to learn, in order to stay in touch with everyone they grew up with and used to live with until very recently. Abhi kal hi ki to baat thi… they start, and trail off when they realise that no one is listening.

They are used to no one listening. Words they grew up with – blouse, baniyan, thali, mandir, aaiye, aap – aren’t cool any more, so they are judged the moment they utter those. They are still learning how to pronounce the words that are cool – start-up, palazzo, work-out, so nice, hi, catch-up. Thanks to the rusty pronunciation, they are judged regardless. They learn all this one summer, and by the next summer their grandson informs them that these are already outdated and they need to start all over again – shorts, rights, amazing, global, secularism. They talked to their wife in one language, and are now reportedly learning a whole new one for their daughters and daughters-in-law.

Growing up, uncles were robbed of the childhood their children had. They had no-nonsense parents who told them to shut up and listen, because they weren’t supposed to know anything. Growing old, at 40, excited about finally opening their mouth, they now realise that they have been robbed of all privileges of old age when their children tell them to shut up and listen, because they don’t know enough.

As a result, they are an oddly silent breed. ‘You can’t really say much these days,” an uncle told me recently. “Kids make a big deal out of small things that you say.” His corresponding aunty agreed. “I was too scared to speak up in front of my mother-in-law. Now I am too scared to speak up in front of my daughter-in-law.” We are the generation everyone skipped, another uncle told me. Nobody bothered to ask us our opinion earlier because it was irrelevant. Nobody bothers to ask us our opinion now because we are irrelevant.

Speaking of aunties, if there’s anyone who deserves more attention than the uncles, its the aunties. Purely in terms of weight of expectations, they have been the most pressured generation of women in history. They are the last of those who can cook without YouTube videos, but are keenly aware of the fact that it’s not a cool thing any more and hence they shouldn’t talk about it too much. They cooked and cared for young and old males and females of the family till their thirties, and are now reeling under the shock of discovering that the service has been discontinued for them because it’s not fashionable any more. They are still learning how to wear sunglasses with a saree and mangalsutra with baggy tshirts, and struggling under the pressure of looking old enough to be respectful and young enough to be respected.

If you ask me, some of the most relevant commentary on our times has come from uncles and aunties. There’s no respect these days, an uncle told me once. Facebook took it away, I wanted to tell him. Har cheez mein milawat rehti hai ab to, says my bua every time I meet her. I know – it’s a grey world. Arey humari to beet gayi, my Mama’s favourite words, tum logo ka kya hoga?  Only a dinosaur can say that to a cyborg and mean it – I will give that to the uncles.