The eyes

One of my aunts visited our home. She had been talking about her son, my cousin, Soham who lives abroad. A couple of years ago Soham married his colleague. Soham's wife Sora is Vietnamese. Ever since his marriage, Sora has been the centre of discussion whenever there is a family meet. While I tried distance myself from any conversation about Sora's culture or heritage there are sometimes when I cannot excuse myself from this discussions. It was that day when I had to jump into this discussions.

"Soham was telling me the other day that Sora is two months pregnant. Her delivery is expected in the month of April. He was asking me if I would like to go there for her delivery. I told him call her mom," aunt said. I was pleasantly surprised to hear such an understanding it tone of my aunt. It was nice to think that Sora's mother would be able to take care of her postpartum. But my believe was shattered within a couple of seconds.

"I told him if she was Indian I would have helped. But if something goes wrong she would say that it is because of your mother. I do not want that blame," aunt raised her palms as if she wanted to show that she had nothing to hide. Then she looked at me smiling and said, "I wish the baby gets my Soham's eyes. You understand what I mean".

I was shocked to hear that. Soham had been married for over 3 years and aunt was still not accepting his wife as her own family. What she said felt deeply disturbing. My aunt thought I did not understand, so she showed me how the eyes of eastern Asians look. With that gesture she laughed as if she had made a funny joke. Not even for a single second she felt that she had said something offensive about Sora.

I got furious with her demeanor. I did not like how she made a fun of Sora's heritage. That felt discriminative to me. I had never met Sora but that moment I felt that I needed to stand up for a family member.

"She is your daughter in law. She is the one who was chosen by your son and my cousin. I am sure that she is a great woman. Being a woman yourself you should know better than making fun of the natural features of someone's face", I said with a polite and authoritative tone.

"See this is what these foreigner girls do. You have not even seen her once but you are singing her praises. And I said nothing wrong I just do not like her eyes. I do not want my grand child to be born with those eyes", aunt said defensively still holding her ground.

"Nobody choses how their facial features are going to be. Making a cultural remark about that is not something to be proud of. Frankly it would not matter at all of what you prefer. I am sure that as long as the baby is healthy, both Soham and Sora are going to be happy. Also it is a good decision to invite Sora's mother for the delivery. Because she should not hear such vile remarks in the postpartum phase," I fired back.

Aunt got angry and left our home. At that moment I felt like I was fighting for my family. I was protecting my family member from an insult. I was also sad that how narrow minded my own family members had been.