DUDE OR DUD?

Do you belong to the PRE-DUDE or POST-DUDE generation? At 36, I firmly belong to the generation which used the Dude-word sparingly, using it to describe boys who had real, genuine, rebellious ATTITUDE.

But this century manufactures attitude along with Yankee baseball caps (worn wrong way around), low-slung jeans (worn with chaddi compulsorily showing), and cheeky-slogan T-shirts. And so, we have a serious case of DUDE-CLONING. Every male under the age of twenty-five is either a cool dude or trying to be one. And the funny thing is, these clones do not appear to have distinctive names of their own, they are all called, you guessed it, DUDE.

Sample this: standing at a slow-moving queue at an up-market garment store, I observed two such clones talking to each other. They were carrying shopping bags full of, presumably, even more slogan-tees, low-waist jeans and baseball caps.

“Hey, dude, didja get good stuff?”
“Not really, dude, these sales are a total rip-off.”
“Y’know, dude, you’re right, dude.” And so on and so on …blah…blah…blah…Dude…blah…blah..Dude. Period. Dude.

Till they came to the payment counter. Then the smartly-dressed shop assistant suddenly became a clone as well, because these young dudes called out, “Lemme take my card out. Dude. Why’s the line so slow today? Dude? Can you pack that separately, Dude?”

The dictionary tells me that the earliest Dude was spotted in 1883 in New York. That limited-edition dude was a “man extremely fastidious in dress and manner.” Well, today’s dude has made fastidious sloppiness his fashion statement. And, he has two more added qualifications – an extremely limited vocabulary (consisting mainly of dude, and a dozen or so words like, cool, yeah, chill, and the like), and a tendency to forget first names (otherwise why will all the Raj-s and Rahuls call each other Dude?). In fact, so linguistically-challenged are they that I was almost convinced that the dude-species must have evolved from Dud. Or D-u-h?

P.S: Any Dude reading this post can dismiss it as the rant of a typical Aunty. Aunties and Dudes, divided by gender and generation, have always been on opposing sides, and never the twain shall meet. Hopefully.

THE AUNTY DIARIES

It actually started when I was all of nine. At that tender age, I became a maashi (aunty) to my cousin-sister’s son. His sweetly-lisped “Aunty” was the first trickle of something that has now become a deluge.

In my slim and svelte twenties, when people called me aunty (these cranks were few and far between), I reacted with incredulous raised-eyebrows: “Who are you kidding?”

In my burgeoning early-thirties, I was mortified. “OMG, what’s the matter with me?” Any stray aunty-call would make me start worrying about wrinkles, white hair and waistlines.

[CONFESSION BOX: There are two vegetable vendors near my building. The first one calls me ‘aunty’ and overcharges me. The second one also overcharges me, but calls me ‘bhabi’ (sister-in-law). I scrupulously avoid the former and frequent the latter.]

Aunty-fication, undoubtedly, IS a mortifying process. I used to regard it as the final crossing over into misshapen, melancholic middle-age. There are tons of ads (especially the hair-dye ones) where we see the lady-in-question hyper-ventilate with horror and shudder with shame at being addressed “aunty”. It seems to be the denial of desirability – of youth, beauty and loveliness.

But once I did become an undeniable, full-fledged AUNTY (with a lot of emphasis on the full), once the trickle turned into a deluge, I realized that there are a lot of advantages to aunty-hood as well. This happened a couple of years back, as I entered the mid-thirties (full-blown rather than fulsome).

For starters, I have regained my peace of mind. Resigned to my lifetime membership to the aunty-brigade, the aunty-calls no longer have the power to unnerve, irritate or depress me. If I do raise my eyebrows, it is merely to say, “Oh yeah? So what?”.

I am no longer combative, like a cousin who refuses to respond if people call her “aunty”. Aunty-hood is no more a disaster-zone or an enemy-territory that I am unwilling to enter. I have decided to accept, agree and adapt – the first step being the regaining of my sense of humour about the whole issue.

Aunty-fication has become a liberating experience. No longer do I have to bother about the MALE GAZE (for more on that scintillating subject, see my other blog here). I no longer feel compelled to dress/walk/behave as an object of male scrutiny. Since the males in question hardly notice me (Mumbai has more than its fair share of PYTs and yummy-mummies), I can wear what I want, do what I want, be what I want to be. Without caring two hoots for male approval/approbation. Ah, the freedom of it all!

And I know that when people like me now, it’s for my inner qualities rather than my outer quantities (quantity being the operative word here).

So you see, it is not about sour grapes at all (cross my heart). The aunty diaries are all about the seven steps to attaining nirvana, actually:
DEFIANCE to CONSTERNATION to DISMAY to CONFLICT to ACCEPTANCE to CALMNESS to BLISS.

What’s your take?