Auntie-uncle business

Few words in India perhaps are loaded with as much gunpowder as uncle and aunt. What’s in a manner of address you may quiz in the quixotic Shakespearan manner? Well, ask the co-pilot whom the uncle juggernaut hit the other day. The fracas, involving the two Air India pilots where the senior pilot who was younger in age 'uncled' the junior pilot, might seem like much ado about nothing. But you can take this high moral ground only at your own peril and only if you have not been the victim of such liberal largess from all and sundry. 

Like most words borrowed from foreign languages, uncle too has been misappropriated, if not misconstrued and misunderstood. The Cambridge Dictionary lists out two meanings of uncle. One, as the English mean it, it refers to the brother of someone's mother or father, or the husband of someone's aunt or uncle. But in Indian English it is defined as any male adult that you know who is older than you. Therein lies the rub… the word ‘older’ rubs most the ‘young-at-heart’ brigade the wrong way and tears right through their ‘youthful’ façade. In a country where age has traditionally been a badge of honour and one that automatically qualifies oneself to demand and command respect, suddenly everyone wants to be young and wise, even young and reckless but old or older no never. Clearly uncle and aunt are certainly not titles that aam aadmi hankers after or likes to be conferred with. 

Never mind that from your sabzi-wallah to your everyday maid to the friendly neighbour's children, all are only too eager to put the auntie/uncle halo around your head. Now it has been proven that the affliction affects professionals too who as a matter of protocol would rather ‘sir’ than 'uncle’ seniors. Perhaps, in this curious case the senior pilot was caught in a bind … how to address a man older in age, but junior in rank. Only if he had known uncle is a rude reminder of one’s advancing years, only if he were aware that it's not the relentlessly 'auntied' women alone who are vain but men can be too.