Don’t Deal With Enough Self-Esteem Issues? This Local Aunty Has You Covered
Not the back-handed compliment we needed, but the back-handed compliment we deserved.
January 17, 2021
By: Sahil Bhutani
Tallahassee, FL – Saima Aunty, 53, used to be a normal aunty, with a normal amount of nosiness. Until one morning, Saima woke up with a startling headache. “I don’t know what happened…I just suddenly became incapable of keeping any of my opinions to myself.”
When Saima Aunty noticed her neighbor, Anjana Sriram, 24, stopped going on her runs as the result of the colder weather, she sprung into action, “Right away, I said ‘Beti, you’re going to gain a lot of weight. Maybe you should eat a few less laddoos. Otherwise, who is going to want to marry you?’”
Sriram expressed her gratitude for Saima Aunty’s perspective. “You know, I had no idea that could happen. And, someone did actually remove all the treadmills, ellipticals, and stair climbers from my apartment’s gym,” Sriram said. “So thank Gods Saima Aunty said something.”
Saima Aunty humbly told us at The Lunar Times why she was different from the other aunties in her small town. “Most aunties keep up with the drama in the local Indian community like whose son got into the best university or whose daughters are unmarried,” she said, “But these things are typically discussed behind closed doors.”
Saima Aunty’s work, as she herself describes, doesn’t end when normal business hours do. One evening, when she attended a Mendi ceremony for her cousin’s daughter, she noticed her niece Priya Ramakrishnan, 21, arrived at the function wearing a sari that accentuated her figure. A big no-no for any aunty in the know.
“I said to her ‘excuse me, but this is not one of your TikTok videos. You don’t need to be
showing that much skin. You’re making Anjana self-conscious about her weight,’” Saima Aunty proudly asserted.
Much like Sriram, Ramakrishnan had nothing but praise for Saima Aunty. “I wore that sari
because I’ve been working really hard in the gym and trying to feel good about my body, but I’m
so glad Saima Aunty stepped in,” she said. “I was dangerously close to developing self-esteem.”
Saima Aunty’s heroics are so inspiring that Marvel Studios is reportedly developing a film based on the real-life Desi hero. “We believe that Marvel can add to the fight for diversity
on-screen with a female, South Asian superhero,” studio spokesperson, Bob Boss said. The role of Saima Aunty is expected to be played by Scarlett Johansson.
When asked if she had a piece of advice for any of her millions of adoring fans, Saima Aunty
said to “Always take the initiative… No one ever asked me to do this job.”
