Insane Aunties: The Scourge of The Sub-Continent

We're Coming For Your Brains!.....Betas loge!

Whilst men, like myself, are quite adept at proclaiming a general lack of fear in our 'manly' endeavors to climb mountains, enter in hot dog eating contests, date our friend's sisters (just kidding...or am I?), drink milk after a substantive meal of Nihari or even drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth, there is one thing that makes all desi men quake in there boot. Aunties. Crazy ones. 

I even have a complex, mathematical formula that quantitatively expresses the conundrum, in...well...loosely put....BS form. Bhai Statistical....ism...ish....stuff.

Puppies + Goldilocks + Maldivian Coffee = Darth Vader

Proof: Puppies are deceptively cute till they bite you. Goldilocks is a nasty wench who goes around sleeping in people's beds and eating their food. No one like Maldivian Coffee; because it gives you the runs. Hence, No one likes Darth Vader because he smells like Maldivan Coffee has the propensity take other peoples stuff and he's a wench. 

Darth Vader = Desi Genes

Proof: If their mothers and bosses would let them, Desi guys would own nothing else other than black clothing and talk in throaty cig-wretched voices. Can't mess with Science. 

Female Puppies = Rabies = Aunties

Puppies have rabies, since rabies rhymes with babies and Aunties have babies or call everyone baby, therefore they are just like Aunties.

Desi + Aunties = Insane Aunties   

Proof: Brown Aunties have a special skin pigment that upon coming into contact with Rabies mutates them into a Chai drinking Zombie on Ecstasy. 

Aunties + Rabies = Insane Aunites = Darth Vader = Evil

Proof: All Aunties have rabies are insane, and by virtue of being Desi are insane and do inappropriate things like Darth Vader. Like looting, pillaging, murdering, lying, stealing, coughing, war mongering, cheating (for a more complete list, refer to Star Wars). 

Hey, Pinky, we're So hip na, your son is soooo Hot!

Every Desi person is well aware of the 'Insane Aunty syndrome' that has infected our happy, peace loving society. What is surprising about this condition is that every desi women's catches it...usually in wedding halls (close proximity in tight spaces is a boon for diseases of all sorts), it just manifests in different ways. 

Women, undergoing the Insane Aunty Phase can be cured; a detox of Hajj, the Bahamas or a dearth of 'good' marriage grade girls and boys is highly recommended. As is a charity they can pretend to be a substantial part off. These infected Aunties are actually rather easy to spot, they are often observed with latest big buggy sun glasses, latest designer wear that always seems a few inches too tight, are replete with over sized bags, state of the art cell phones (which they only use to call & occasionally take picture) and the talent to spread news faster than the black plague, or more currently, denguey. 

I'm not sure what it is about Pakistan that nurtures these women, but I'm betting on a conspiracy spearheaded by the insidious European Pygmies of North Southern Slovakia....it's a top secret group....like the Zionists!

I'm certain off is that there is some sort of genetic disposition in sub-continental women that, at a drop of a hat, makes them turn into bat shit fucking crazy beings hell bent on ridding the world of the unmarried, and mosquitoes. not necessarily in that order. 

In Pakistani, 'Hot Aunties' is a very popular search term. In the spirit of lucidity, I'm fairly confident that a disproportional number of these childish searches are by boys (and girls, I'm broad minded like that) seeking materials of the pornographic nature (Side note: I love that I can pretend to write like an adult). I think it's the Desi equivalent to MILF or perhaps the searchers were hoping to view their favorite Insane Aunty on Fire. 

Tell Us More About This North South Slovak Consipiracy!

Now Pakistani girls in general are rather blessed in the looks department. They have what can only be described as copy right on Diva'esque 'God deems that you'll definitely get married...if you want to' body type. However, once a woman enters the Aunty stage (loosely defined at say 35, though I do know a toddler lass who prances around with an over sized hand bag, cell phone and shades large enough to protect her brain from UV rays), she tends to....um change.  

The Visual Facts Speak for themselves

The 'it's natural to put on a few pounds' comment, turns into several...dozen... of those 'few pounds', which is fine, because that's genetics. However, Insane Aunties love to 'barely notice' and have decade long conversations about everyone else's weight except for their own; I have the feeling that lack of mirrors and being self-delusional helps. As do prescription drugs.

PS: Their Tailors are lying to them about their waists.

Gossip: Aunties are criticized for minute things like not knowing how to use the world wide web. Which is true, but the reason why is very simple. Aunties are the world wide web. Gossip spreading in an aunty circles like a plague of well... denguey. 

Once a bit of gossip gets the tiniest bit of attention, one may as well have announced it in the north pole via loudspeaker. They're getting in on Facebook too....The Millat Kind (everyone's outgrown Orkut).

Insane Aunties have an enhanced sense of smell, which they use for their sleuthing. Want to know if a girl is pregnant, ask an insane aunty and she'll give you accurate intel. One whiff. The American Drug Traffickers Association must piss in their pants every time they see one. 

In an age where most older people can't understand cell phones, Insane Aunties have some psychic relationship with their phones, they always are on it, know when it's going to ring and why. I'm betting that there is a Swedish chip tucked away in the recesses of their brains. Right next to the hypocrisy ignorer kill switch.

Women carry massive bags, that's not secret. Insane Aunties, not only carry massive bags, they insist on filling them up with a random assortment of Sugar, Ketchup, Hot Sauce Sachets, BBQ Tonight Wet Wipes, decade old receipts,....and it's no wonder why they can never find their cellphone when it rings to the tune of 'Bootilicious'. Kill me now. 

Devious; no matter what position you take, an aunty will be able to add some insight that makes it sound like she agrees with you. before she lambasts you later in a classy bitchy way ofcourse. they call it 'being polite'. Want to create a scandal? Tell her anything....even Alien stories work.

A nation of Match Makers: In a culture where arranged marriage are the norm, does anyone ever wonder how it get's done? it's the Auntie nation coming to the fore! Once an Insane Aunty catches hold of her prey, usually a single person of marriageable age (for girl's it may start as soon as 15, for guys....well, don't bother cashing in that first salary), they effectively activate an entire network of Aunties across the globe to find a suitable match. Sometimes it can be down to something as simple as that both individuals hate Peas, and voila, a match for a life time is made. 

The sad thing is that as crazy and ridiculous as Insane Aunties are, leaving the youth quivering in their wake, it's these kooks that help make our lives entertaining. So as much as the grief, it's totally worth it. No one complained about the plague after they died from it did they? If you can't beat them, know that eventually you'll be genetically required to join them.

Special thanks to all Desi women that do not morph into Insane Aunties. Your contribution to the male sanity is appreciated. 

Rishta Exchange: Monetary Brilliance

I think I've spent atleast several hundred thousand hours of my time abroad explaining the concept of 'Rishta' or arranged marriages. So I'm quite well versed in talking about things that make me inherently uncomfortable. 

Imagine this with conversation with your room mate: 

Me: 'No we don't buy our women.....unless you are Saudi and have to give Mehr...but that's not really buying...more like a token of appreciation without which a marriage would not occur, in Pakistan you actually get jahez/dowry'

Friend: 'So you get paid to get married....are the girls that butt ugly.'

Me: 'No, but the furniture you get as dowry usually is, think of it as a garage sale turned donation....only with jewelry, clothes, money, furniture.' 

Friend: Bro, I want to be Pakistani now, it sounds awesome, and you can marry 4 times.....wtf, it's like Christmas....but you get laid...and have better shot at an orgy.  

Rishta's is that proposal that puts the arranged marriage together. So it's basically the day your family points at a girl and says go marry her. In fact, they've already printed up the cards for the wedding, we've cleared the holiday time with your boss, just show up & don't be too wasted and isn't it nice how you are going to the Maldives for your honey moon? 

So, us brown folk have all seen how Rishta's work. A rishta comes, it goes, or it stays. We've (well me anyway) all read with assorted levels of amusement, the matrimonial section in the classified advertisement pages. So we know what goes into the making of a good rishta. I think we ought to professionalize it....stock market style. So here's what I propose (all puns and moral depravity intended).

A Rishta exchange, ala the stock exchange, where you can buy and sell shares in a Rishta. Anyone confused? No worries, I shall elaborate, elucidate and enthrall. And no, I am not talking about pimping (though such exchange would make sense).

Basically, A Rishta will become a commodity bond (which it is to a certain extent). Just like with bonds of publicly traded companies you can buy shares in publicly traded rishta's. Of course, a rishta is only a rishta for so long right? So each rishta will have to have a bond like maturity. The maturity being of course marriage. Of course, it doesn't have to end there, we could go into marriages as well, but thats diversification. Lets just focus on rishta's.

Since rishta's mature, they won't have pure ordinary shares like companies do. So they'll sort of be somewhere between bonds and shares. No, not like preferred shares or debentures or whatever else. These will be special rishta shares. They'll work like this:

Say a boy or a girl is born (holla!). We'll go with the boy first, since different things affect the prices of boys rishta's and girls rishta's:

So the boy is born, and after the birth, initial cuddling, naming, pooping and talk about how cute the kid's feet are, there'll be an IPO for the boys rishta. At this point the price will be determined by the parents status. For example if they're big land owners then the rishta's value is naturally higher. If they're big industrialists the value is higher. Etcetera. Now as time goes by the rishta will trade fairly evenly to start with. Changes in the parents status and in the child's surroundings will affect the rishta's value, but nothing the child does initially will really affect the rishta, unless it comes to light that the child has sadistic tendencies or is insane, or some assorted mental or physical deficiency or perhaps he's a little Mozart with the sitar. Anyway the boys own voluntary actions start affecting the rishta later. So if the boy gets into drugs, the value of the rishta will drop. I'm sorry, but this is a fact. A drug addled boy will lower his rishta value. And if the boy is gay....well, then the share price will drop exponentially till he can be 'cured' from the ailment.

So a whole range of socio-economic factors will play into the boys rishta's value. Now, boys tend to have longer maturities than girls. This is not true across the board, but true enough that we can generalize. A boy's rishta tenure lasts from birth till after 25 in most cases. A girls would be generally less than 25. This is not laid in stone of course, and the tenure is subject to fluctuation, which will make valuations harder of course, but thats where the risk comes in. And of course inherent risk is always there, the rishta bearer may die. But hey, a company could spontaneously combust as well. So yeah inherent risk is of course the major Hand. but that's life. You could die too. So yeah moving along...

So the boy gets a green card = rishta value goes up, the boy breaks a leg juggling armadillo's with his feet = rishta value goes down. The boy is a doctor = rishta value goes up, the boy is a sweeper= rishta value goes down.

If a boys parents are major landowners and their political affiliations work out for the better, that is their party comes into power = rishta value goes up, and conversely it goes down. Though not too drastically, a land owner's kids rishta is a fairly safe bet.

If the boy has a rape case against him, thats a different story.

So anyway, the maturity date becomes more concrete when the boy gets baat pakki-o-fied. The rishta now ceases to trade like a share, and becomes a full fledged bond in nature. of course, it can always revert if the engagement is broken, but then the rishta value drops rather significantly. Once the nikkah happens, the rishta ceases and the owners get a payout from the jahez.

Now onto the Girls:

So a girls IPO differs only slightly from the boys, in that theres no khatna. Of course the perceived tenure for a girls rishta is shorter. Anyway, they trade in a similar mien. The parents Socio-economic classification is a major determinant of the rishta's intial value, and how it trades in the early years. Of course, education and other things come into play. The girls reputation of course bears more heavily on the rishta's value than the boys, due to of course the dual moralities prevalent in our society.

So, the girl moves on in the world, and of course the same factors dealing with the girls physical and mental state play into the rishta value. However the voluntary actions of the girls weigh heavily on the girls rishta's value. If the girl is into drugs, the value of the rishta fall a little more steeply than the boys. If the girl drinks, the value plummets (we are assuming perfect free markets where there are no closet drinkers). This is because a girl who is intoxicated can be taken advantage of by boys, whereas a boy who is intoxicated is less likely to be taken advantage of by girls (that poor tied up waiter not withstanding) or by boys (albeit the ones who deny being gay) for that matter. Needless to say the hotter the girl the more likely is her value to increase and this can be fore casted based on her genes.

So intoxication of all sorts bear more heavily on the girls rishta value than boys with nasha's. Again, it's the dual morality and double standards prevalent in society... well actually, no, this is just more common sense. Its the same as saying a girl can write her name in snow as easily as boys. No, it doesn't work that way.

Now if a girl gets pregnant, thats a major problem. The rishta immediately ceases to trade, and the maturity date is decided suddenly. The rishta effectively becomes a junk bond. However fret not, you can actually get lucky in this case and make a killing (assuming that the girl isn't killed). If the girl is taken to wife by a wealthy old man, you can actually make out good. Of course this is rare, and extremely risky. High returns for abnormally high risk....

So a girl approaches her maturity, and then it works much the same way as with boys, except that the maturity period is shorter. The older a girl gets and remains unmarried, her rishta has been restructured as unsecured debt, though this could be good as her parents may be willing to take enormous amounts of loans to provide for a good dowry. So there is still potential in this distressed asset pricing model.

Traders will make a killing.....BUT ALL ASSETS WILL BE FAIRLY PRICED!!! In fact some issues value may be artificially revised due to plastic surgery, and this investment would make all commodities listed in the exchange appreciate in value plus we'd have alot more good looking people around....and who wouldn't want that? 

So I think I've made it somewhat clear, other factors that Ive either not thought of, or I've not bothered listing because well, this isn't a book or a thesis...though it should be, as it would have made much more interesting reading than my thesis. 

NOTE: Majority of this has unapologetically been stolen from Asmer.