fourth year akshaya shan

Unexpected friendships are the best ones, and this past summer I made the most unlikely of friends. On a rare occasion during my college career, I decided to spend the summer at home rather than travel or stay in Athens. My main reason was that my grandmother was home for the summer from India and I hadn’t seen her in eight years. I’m a few weeks into my summer and an auntie (this is typically what we call our parents’ lady friends) came over to pay her respects to my grandmother. This particular auntie is a little older than my mother, somewhere in her early sixties (maybe)? She came in a saree with a plate of sweets and my instant impression was: “This lady is super fobby.” FOB is a term we classify people who are “fresh off the boat” or straight from the motherland.

During that afternoon, there was some conversation, and I learned that this auntie loved dogs and baking (which happens to be some of my favorite hobbies). My mother said that she would send my brothers and I over with our little pup to play with hers. I guess it was sort of her way of thanking the auntie for coming over. As predicted, my brothers ditched me in the name of a volunteer and I was left alone to go to auntie’s house and entertain her for who knows how long. Little did I know, this lady would be the light I never knew I needed. The chemistry was instant, and I felt instant regret for making a snap judgment. We took the dogs out for walks and she taught me to bake an array of pastries from scratch, all while telling me stories of her life. She told me about her two daughters who were caught in the gossip of Indian society and how she truly didn’t know why people said the things as if they were the most perfect humans.

Divorce can be a taboo topic, especially in the eyes of Indian people. Both of her daughters were raised in our small town and married their first husbands there. The two daughters had married Indian men (probably to satisfy Indian norms), but within a couple of years of their marriages, they got divorced. Later on, the two of them ended up meeting Americans, fell in love, and have been happily married ever since. She knew I was getting to the age where my family would start talking about marriage— and to my satisfaction, she did not adhere to the same thought process. She told me it is okay to get married in your own time, and to carry this ideal in other aspects of my life . People are always going to be watching and talking. If you take that to heart, how will you ever become your own person with your own accomplishments? I went back to her house three to four times a week that summer and learned that it was okay to be a taboo, if it meant that I was happy. Thank you, auntie, for being the friend I never knew I needed.

It's Okay to be a Taboo