Spectator by Seema Goswami: Agony over the aunts
What do you call the cousin of your father? I only ask because Zohran Mamdani (New York’s new mayor) was accused of being a liar when he referred to his father’s cousin as his aunt. According to Mamdani, his Fui (paternal aunt) was so scared of the Islamophobia rampant in NY after 9/11 that she stopped taking the subway for fear of being targeted for her hijab.
Whatever you may think about Mamdani focusing on his aunt’s transportation woes after one of the most horrific terror attacks on American soil (if you ask me, I think it was a grievous error and minimized the suffering of those who lost their loved ones in the attack), there is no denying that Muslims were targeted by bigots in the aftermath of 9/11. But strangely, it was not the substance of Mamdani’s statement that drew the most flak. Instead, most people focused on the fact that neither of his father’s sisters wore a hijab, or indeed, lived in New York. When Mamdani clarified that he had been referring to his father’s cousin, the criticism grew even louder.
Who calls their father’s cousin their aunt, the chorus of opprobrium went. Well, the answer to that was very simple: Every brown person.
Whether you live in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or indeed, Uganda, if you are of South Asian heritage, then you refer to your father and mother’s cousins as aunts and uncles. Not just that, you have specific names for these aunts and uncles, depending on how you are related to them (Masi/Masad; Fui/Fua; Tai/Taya; Chachi/Chacha; Mami/Mama). It doesn’t really matter how far removed these cousins may be, they are still regarded as aunts and uncles. Nobody would dream of calling them cousins or even Bhaiyya and Didi.
Speaking of cousins, I wonder how the white world will react when they discover the peculiar sub-continental nomenclature of ‘cousin brother’ and ‘cousin sister’, which is how we refer to the children of our aunts and uncles. That’s when we are not simply calling them ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ and using the terms ‘real brother’ and ‘real sister’ to distinguish our siblings from them.
In my own family, like in millions of others, I am Masi and Bua to the children of both my siblings and my cousins. And now that my nieces and nephews have begun procreating, I am happy to answer to ‘Nani’ even though technically I am a grandaunt rather than a grandmother. That’s the way it’s always been in Indian families, and that’s the way it will remain for generations to come.
And why should it change? Why should we be expected to follow Western constructs when it comes to our own definition of family? Why should we surrender the concept of the Great Indian Extended Family to some Western concept of degrees of consanguinity? One of the most admirable things about Indian society is the strength of our family bonds – which are not restricted to the nuclear family unit but to a larger family that provides us with a sense of community.
So, let’s not allow the carping critics from the West to tell us how to address our father’s (and mother’s) cousins. Aunts and uncles they are; and aunts and uncles they always will be.
From HT Brunch, November 08, 2025
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