Open Letter To All Moral Policing Aunties: “It’s Not Your Fault; No One’s Fault, Yet We’re All Responsible!”

“You remembered that you couldn’t do it, but this girl is trying to have her own choice?” The author writes to all aunties who moral police young women, pointing out how we are all responsible.

It’s not your fault aunty.

I know why you said such a degrading thing to the girls out there. I know how it was hammered into you that girls who wear revealing dresses are characterless. I know exactly how you would have felt when such things were said to you by our dear society.

I know its not your fault aunty. When you were 16 or something years old, you wished you looked like Maushami Chatterjee. So you got one tight salwar but couldn’t wear for your dad said that girls who wear such dresses bring shame to the family and asked you to put your dupatta properly instead. You might still remember how it felt. You were ashamed of your breasts. That your father had to point out to cover them up. Shit! Those damn awful things brought so much shame.

I know how it felt aunty when you went out to the local market one day, oh and you forgot your Dupatta. That day you still remember. The boys of the neighborhood were out there. Looking at you they drooled. Did they just have guts? Oh no no it was normal for them because they are men. You were at fault. One of them even tried to Grope you. You never repeated such a thing again in adulthood.

I know how it felt aunty when you got married off. There was a big issue one day when your friend got you a salwar but your inlaws insisted on saree. They wanted you to cover your face the whole day, only to let go off of it at night when your will was not even counted.

I know how it felt aunty, that you too longed for freedom. Freedom of thoughts. Freedom of walking about without having any fear about getting raped.

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All this was bottled up, when one fine day you saw your younger self standing there. You remembered that you couldn’t do this but this girl is trying to have her own choice? You get confused and you vomited out everything which was there in your subconscious. You told her that wearing short clothes she was “asking to be raped”.

How I know this? I know because I saw you fumble there at a point in the video, and saw you standing dumbstruck, because you knew. You knew that something is not right deep down there.

Aunty I wish you tried to listen to that lady in a black dress. She has daughters. She is fighting because they will grow up one day, and the lady in the black dress doesn’t want her daughters to suffocate. She wants them to live their dreams. Dreams which are not determined by some piece of cloth.

Listen to that lady in a yellow dress. Getting all hyper. Probably she got reminded of her house-help. One who used to come daily but suddenly stopped. Later came to know that something very wrong happened to her when she was walking back home “fully clad”. It was inscribed in her mind very strongly.

So Aunty please let this stop here, please. Let society grow. Don’t restrict it, please. After all it’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault yet everyone is responsible.

A version of this was first published here.

Image source: YouTube

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