Mami, LOL doesn't mean that...

Me and my aunt were out in the market, buying stuff for a family function. I’m usually dragged into this, despite the fact that I hate such functions. With my ever-growing age, all that my relatives have to talk about is my marriage. And, I hate it.

I was happy that she wasn’t talking about my marriage. But my aunt, from nowhere, brings up the subject of today’s youngsters and online chatting. Weird, I thought. But she can talk about it, of course. She’s young at heart, after all.

She started telling me about her daughter being immersed in the laptop, chatting all the time. I told her that she might be busy working on something. “Working?”, she said, “She’s in her 9^th grade.” I tried hard not to make a puzzled face. “Aunty, you don’t know. I feel bad for these youngsters. They’re hammered with so much learning these days.”, was the best I could come back with. “What’s up? What’re you doing in the evening? How many boyfriends do you have these days? These are not related to studies, are they?”, my aunt questioned me. There was already a question mark on my face, as a matter of fact. I rubbed it off. “Arre aunty, young girls. New generation. Don’t doubt them. They have these new ways of entertaining themselves.”, I said. “What entertainment? Go for movies. Play sometime.”, she replied. “Vaise bhi… what kind of language she uses these days? The other day, building ke neeche she was talking to a guy friend of hers. I never liked that guy. Spiky hair, lose pants, short t-shirts, his VIP ‘jetti’ popping out. Where does he think, he is from… Nigeria? It doesn’t even suit his name – Ramanathan Iyengar. What was his Dad thinking? I’ve told her not to talk to that ‘chori naai’ too much.”, she said. I didn’t know what to say. I said, “Hmmm…”

“One day, I sneaked up on them, just to hear what they are talking. So confusing it was to interpret their language. These short forms are also so tough to figure out.”, she told. “Why aunty, what were they talking about?”, I asked her. “Some short forms ya. OMG, something, something… And, then he said LOL to her. I got so irritated, that I entered the scene and asked her to rush home. You only tell me… who says Lots Of Love in front of someone’s mother? And, as she was leaving, she again said some short forms – G2G or something. Aiyyo!!!”

I fainted.