Let’s revise. On the family tree, aunt simply means a parent’s female sibling. In South Asian culture, aunty is the way you would respectfully address any older woman. Aunties are wise OGs in African communities. Among LGBTQ+ people, Auntie is another kind of OG — the flamboyant, nurturing, gay person who’s always on your side.
But aunty, Indian pop culture has long led us to believe that it reflects some kind of seedy neighborhood environment. The one who hovers over the balcony railing, eavesdropping; Who presides over kitty parties; gives unsolicited advice on elevator rides; Young women are policed over their clothing, choices, even the way they laugh. The term soon became shorthand for aging. “Don’t call me Auntie” has been a recurring punchline to mock women’s concerns about youth and desirability. Ek Main Aur Ek Tu’s 2012 song is “Auntyji, Auntyji, Utho Aur Nacho,” because older women apparently need permission to have fun.
Now, let’s revise again for 2026. On TikTok and Instagram, #RichAunty is a single, child-free older woman with disposable income, impeccable taste, and a diverse select family. Meera Syal has titled her upcoming memoir Vigilante. In fashion, auntie style indicates high-quality classic pieces, worn by young women who think trends are down.
And take a closer look at the people in those neighborhoods. Uncle still represents an old man with an old mentality. Meanwhile, Aunty is a woman who has decent men and marriages. She’s going on spontaneous vacations (she can’t take care of the kids this weekend, sorry!), she sends the best gifts, she doesn’t procrastinate if you haven’t had your first child by age 30. She is in control of her life and is not peeping into your life. She is not giving opinions, she is giving life goals. Continue. Call her aunty. He has no objection.
Here’s how the definition has changed.
big break
At 32, Sana Mishra, a high school teacher in Bengaluru, welcomes being called aunty. She has nieces and nephews, but she was married at 27 and divorced at 30, which brings with it a strange burden. “Some men in my circle commented that it would be hard for me to get back into dating because men might not want to date an aunty,” she recalls. When she heard this for the first time she was terrified. Then he thought about it. “If being emotionally and sexually intelligent makes me an auntie, then I’m happy being an auntie. So, I tell men that as an auntie, I can game the dating system better than an uncle like them.”
Mishra doesn’t want to be 20 years old again. There is no man to sign off on her everyday decisions, she is not obliged to have children, and she is treated in a respectful manner. It’s the flip side of the aging story we grew up hearing: Women’s 20s are traditionally the prime of life. This was when she was at her most attractive. Now, as women in their 20s strive tirelessly to build careers, navigate the chaotic dating landscape, and curse their junior-level single income, it is the aunties who live better.
Catch them on Insta. 74-year-old Zeenat Aman posts candidly about ageing, love and selfishness. Jarna Garg, 51, uses the image of the desi aunty to celebrate arranged marriages, immigrant life in America, and the fun side of motherhood. Sindhu V, 57, makes jokes about ageing, marriage, parenting and female desire, all of which were once taboo subjects.
London-based legend Seema Anand, 63, is a sex-educator. But she uses the term “patron saint of pleasure” on her Insta (@SeemaAnandStorytelling), because she’s spent much of the last decade convincing women that their desires, or their desirability, still matter, even after they’ve reached aunthood. “In every way, I am an aunty in appearance,” says Anand, referring to the shock of his gray hair. When trolls leave comments like “Aunty knows everything” under her posts, describing hand-in-hand techniques and sexuality as a spiritual experience, she doesn’t clap. Who has time when you’re living such a big life? “I say, ‘Yes.’ Aunty says ‘It’s not something that bothers me anymore.’
smart investment
It may be that we are seeing aunties in a new light as most women have stopped seeing themselves primarily as wives, parents, and supporting characters. Many choose their own partner, marry later, have control over the size of their family, either earn their own money, or have greater control over family assets. This has made them less dependent on men, and reduced their interest in maintaining any system. then no. They will not ask, son, when are you getting married?
“Today’s average 45-plus woman is not the 45-plus woman of a few generations ago. They’re building second careers, getting fit and refusing to slow down,” says author Kiran Manral, who co-hosts the light-hearted Not Your Aunty podcast with writer Shunali Khullar Shroff. Her show has set aside tired aunty tropes. One episode is about why independent women make some men uncomfortable. The second involves investment and financial literacy, and how this liberates older women.
Manral imagined that his podcast would be lost among younger listeners. She was wrong. At the Bangalore Literature Festival a year ago, he found teenagers and women in their 20s saying they liked the show because the hosts were candid, even if they were sometimes politically incorrect. “He enjoyed it a lot.” The show has helped young listeners connect with the older women in their families. Manral remembers a person in the audience at a literary festival in Chennai telling her, “When I heard your show, it felt like these were my thoughts, but in a woman’s body”.
new beginning
Pop culture is taking hold. We have gone from an Auntyji song in 2012 to the Gujarati film Auntypreneur in 2025. Supriya Pathak plays a 65-year-old Mumbai housewife who, along with other middle-aged women, ventures into the stock market to save her housing society from demolition. Women swap kitty parties for market charts, investment tips and strategy sessions, making aunty the smartest person in the room. The tagline “Why should the boys have all the money?”
Meanwhile, some women are deliberately choosing to be called aunty. In Toronto, Canada, Orby Roy, 51, is a wife and mother of two, and a former computer programmer on Wall Street. But her Insta handle is @AuntySkates, and it is full of viral videos of her skateboarding in saree. “Aunties are frowned upon in Indian culture,” she says. “They are usually critical, short-tempered and have no filter. I thought it was time to flip the script and make us fun and welcoming.”
Roy has also been learning to be kind to her aunties since childhood. She says, “I realized that they were once young and hopeful. Perhaps social norms, cultural expectations or life’s disappointments had weakened them.” He started skateboarding at the age of 43 to spend more time with his children so he wouldn’t miss out on the joy he had with others in his life. This decision is largely based on “the backs of all the aunties before us who sacrificed their hopes and dreams.”
Meanwhile, India’s family tree is getting a little less crowded. Data from NCAER and the National Family Health Survey show that about 10% of households have only one child, while one in four college-educated women prefer not to have more than one child. So, the next generation won’t have enough biological aunts anyway. What remains is the title. Aunty could mean an elderly neighbor with a spare key to the house. Or, the beautiful silver-haired friend who is on holiday alone in Bali. Or, the menopausal person who just bought barrel-leg jeans. Or the woman who is leaning over the balcony railing, not to see who is coming home late, but because she was feeling the fresh air at 3 in the morning, and did not need anyone’s permission to get there.
From HT Brunch, July 04, 2026
Follow us at www.instagram.com/htbrunch
