Moms and grandmas are already quite critical of their daughters’ appearances, but suppose the mom or grandma is Indian or Pakistani..SOS!!! Send prayers for the poor girl who is under scrutiny! The Power Puff Girls were created with sugar, spice and everything nice. Add a little garam masala in place of the spice, take away the nice, and you end up with the Pakora Puff Girls, aka all the Indian aunties who have probably criticized at least one girl in their life and called them a pakora or told them they look like pakora because they gained a little weight. For those of you who don’t know, a pakora is a popular savory snack made of chickpea flour and can sometimes puff up when made a certain way.
Photo compliments of RecipeTinEats
As a brown girl, I’ve gotten some really mean comments from aunties throughout my life and some that I find to be really funny and nonsensical. To this day, I have not understood their obsession to ALWAYS have an opinion that needs to be voiced; unfortunately, it’s usually not a kind one. One of my friends had an aunty come up to them and tell them they need to lose weight because their clothes don’t look good on them. That broke my friend’s heart because she is such a happy girl and felt so confident in what she was wearing, until that comment was made. It not only ruined her day, but also made it hard for her to show up to the next religious event since she felt so self-conscious. I found this to be very unfair and saddening, especially knowing that other women may have also experienced this growing up. It’s so hard to recover from something like this because the next time you see the person that said this to you, you can only wonder what else they think about you and what other aunties must think about you. It’s a toxic trait these aunties possess to always speak their mind.
Being a single girl over 25 is also so hard in this community because it’s automatically assumed that something is wrong with you if you’re still single. For someone like me who is not the typical body shape or size, aunties make it their mission to make you feel like you have to settle right away and that you’re not deserving of finding the relationship you think you deserve. I used to fall into this trap and I allowed them to make me feel undervalued, but I refuse to accept that for myself now. In the brown community, it’s very typical to work with a matchmaker or sometimes random aunties think they’re cupid and take it upon themselves to try and find you a “match.” You might be familiar with this concept because of the popular Netflix show called Indian Matchmaking & the famous Seema Taparia from Mumbai. Some random aunties who have known me for years thought they could play cupid in my life and sent my bio-data to some people they knew. For those of you who don’t know what a bio-data is, it’s basically a resume that is supposed to be appealing to the family of the suitor or suitress (idk if this is even a word). For this reason, you’re encouraged to list your community involvement and things like cooking, singing, painting, etc. For more traditional families, these bio-datas don’t make their way to the possible match, instead, they stay with the mom. Once, I was shown the bio-data of someone, by one of my self-proclaimed cupids, and I was not interested. Like the stubborn brown woman she was, she forced me to change my answer and say “yes” so she could send my bio-data to the guy’s mom. After some guilt tripping and being told that my time is running out and I probably won’t find anyone, I said “sure, whatever.” Within an hour, this guy’s mother responded with “she’s perfect, but she’s bigger than I’d like her to be.” My heart sank. After my heart swam back up to where it belonged, I understood she probably said this because she was just jealous I had an ass and she didn’t!!! Jokes aside, this wasn’t something for her to say or even decide, but brown culture makes this a thing. This comment hurt even more because my own mother took it really seriously and was convinced that I’d be single for the rest of my life because I can’t lose weight and in brown culture, it’s really shameful to have a daughter be unmarried for the remainder of her life.
Taking my mom’s feelings into consideration, I continued on, what seemed like, an impossible quest to find a partner! Around the age of 27, I decided to work with a matchmaker who was the same age as me because I felt they would be more understanding of what I wanted and less judgmental. See one of my future posts for what a shit-show this was.
Eventually, I ended my search for my perfect man; not because I found him, but because I was going insane. I deleted all the dating apps, started ignoring the self-proclaimed cupids, and took some time to self-reflect. During this time, I realized how happy I truly was without that unnecessary stress and drama. Brown culture creates a toxic mindset about dating/marriage for young adults. With that mindset, I was constantly willing to settle for bad behavior and poor treatment. Along the way, I know I also hurt some people unintentionally and I think about it often because that’s not who I am. After all this reflection, I’ve come to an understanding that finding a man or being in a relationship has nothing to do with your self-worth, what you look like, or justifying your image to anyone. There isn’t a timeline attached to it and no need to stress over it just because you think others will see you as more valuable because you’re with someone. It would be more damaging to rush into a relationship or marriage due to the pressure of society/aunties and end up unhappy. Instead, it’s more important to ensure that this is a person you are compatible with as a LIFE partner! There is plenty to value about your life and yourself – focus on that! Everyone is beautiful and most of all, kindness is beautiful.
P.S: My message to brown aunties– be kind to others, you don’t know what they’re facing in their lives. Your own trauma is not a reason to make negative comments to anyone. When people constantly hear negative comments about themselves, they start to believe it. As a society, we have a responsibility to uplift each other and only kindness can do this.
