Breaking free from societal labels

"I'm Not Aunty O, I'm me." -Toni Jones Few days back while wandering through the rain-kissed evening, I was listening songs on Spotify, and there the dulcet utters of Toni Jones' "I'm Not Aunty O, I'm Me" drifted through my earphones, hitting the arpeggio within.

- Dr. Shalini Yadav

The pitter-patter of raindrops and lyrics of Jones carried me to a recent encounter, and that was already dawdling and trying to settle in my mind like a mild niggle.

What exactly had happened, I would love to tell here as it may have occurred with many women around the globe at one or another phase of their lives and they can correlate themselves with my mental state. At the exam centre one day, I had surrendered my phone to the vigilant examiner, a temporary exile from the digital world for few hours for taking the exam.

Upon reclaiming my device after exam, I received the shopkeeper's unexpected appellation- "lo aunty apka phone." It felt like an upsetting and offensive note in an otherwise harmonious air after writing a good exam, listening 'aunty' from a person of my age or maybe he was elder than me. I wanted to shout out- "I'm not your aunty." The dissension was dawdling inside, refusing to be silenced.

Then Toni's emboldening song in accord with the cadenced rain triggered a sense of reclaiming self and asserting individuality, machinated me to unbridle a deluge of thoughts that I was trying to keep inside after this "aunty" episode.

The incident, the word, though seemingly trivial for many of patriarchal minds, had tapped into a continuing echo within me.

As morning walks are plot-walks for many poets, writers, journalists and columnists, my writer's instincts also got stimulated while walking by experience, sensing the narrative's power within it, urging me to explore and express the emotions that spun beneath the surface.

The shopkeeper's words, though habitually spoken without prior consideration or thought due to a conventional mindset, sparked a reflection on identity, age, and the labels that shape our interactions.