Anjali Aunty 2

Anjali Aunty 2

Aunty came to know that I was living alone in a small flat. Also, I survive on home deliveries. She insisted that I shift over to her flat. Since it was a Sunday, she wanted me to fetch my belongings immediately. It wasn't much, I just had two suitcases and my laptop bag. The furniture and equipment belonged to the landlord. So there I was, my new address changed to care of Anjali aunty. 

Later that day she insisted on taking me shopping for new shirts. At the mall, the contrast between us became even more noticeable. I walked beside her tall figure of 5’11”. But with my short stature of 5’3, I barely reached her shoulder”. She wore a flowing maroon kurti and tight jeans, and she moved with tall, effortless confidence.

People turned and looked. They thought I was her nephew. Or her son. Obviously our age difference of 25 years showed. She was 53 years old, almost an old woman. Whereas I was an adult young man of 28 years. Also against her massive 85 kilos, I was actually looking very small with my 63 kg weight. We were no doubt an odd looking couple. 

Inside the store, she picked out shirts while I waited nervously.

When the trial room line got long, she looked down at me and said, “Why are you standing like a scarecrow? Come here.”

Before I could react, she lifted me on her hip, in front of two astonished sales-girls.

“Aunty..!” I hissed.

She walked past the queue and said aloud, “My nephew is just back home from a knee surgery. Can’t stand too long.”

The crowd looked sympathetic but still chuckled.

She sat down on a cushioned bench and held me on her lap, with her thick arms wrapped around my waist like a child waiting with his mother at the doctor’s chamber.

“You’re 28 but sit like you’re 8,” she whispered in my ear. 

When the person who was inside the trial room came out, Aunty just stood up with me in her cradle and walked straight to the trial room. She spoke to the guy who was about to enter, “Beta, can you please allow us. My nephew is having problems with his knee; I need to take him to the doctor immediately after this. Please”.

The guy smiled and stepped back. Aunty did not put me down in front of the trial room, but she just walked inside carrying me in her cradle like I'm a little boy. Everybody outside looked stunned. A full grown adult young man of 28 carried inside the trial room in the arms of an almost old woman in her 50’s, like he is just a small boy.

At the counter, the cashier asked me, “Beta, which color shirt did aunty pick for you?”

“He’s not my nephew,” she replied with a grin. “He’s my companion. My… very portable man.”

She lifted me one more time at the exit, placing her hand firmly under my thighs and back, and said to the stunned staff: “He’s small but sweet. I carry him when he’s tired.”

She got invited to a relative’s wedding and asked me to come as her plus-one.

I dressed in a formal kurta and pajama, trying my best to look older and respectable. But next to her in her towering, regal saree, I looked like a schoolboy on a class field trip.

At the wedding, the teasing began the moment we walked in.

“Hai re!” one aunty said, nudging her, “Who is this tiny dulha? Your nephew?”

“No no,” she said proudly, placing a protective hand on my back, “He’s mine. My little man. I carry him more than my purse.”

Before I could speak, she turned to me and said, “Sit properly, beta,” and patted her lap in front of everyone.

I blinked in horror. “Aunty, not here—!”

But she’d already pulled me down into her lap, wrapping both arms around me, rocking me like a naughty child. The aunties burst into laughter.

Later, when I tried to escape into a quieter corner, her tall cousin sister blocked my way.

“So you’re the one Anjali didi talks about!” the tall woman said, towering above me. “Let me feel how light you are.”

And before I could run, she lifted me up over her shoulder like I was luggage.

“A 50-year-old woman lifting a 28-year-old young man? Not just her. I also can. You’re practically pocket-sized,” she teased.

The wedding had been exhausting—not just physically, but emotionally. I had been lifted, rocked, swung, and teased by that tall cousin of aunty, who treated me like her shared teddy bear. It was dark now, and we were finally back at her flat.

Aunty led me inside, closed the door gently, and kicked off her shoes. Even barefoot, she loomed nearly a foot above me. I stood near the couch, swaying slightly from the long day.

She looked at me with a mix of amusement and tenderness.

“Poor baby,” she cooed, “Was my sister too rough with you? My sweet little boy got tossed around like a baby at a birthday party.”

I nodded slowly, and she stepped forward. Before I could blink, she leaned down and slid one hand beneath my knees and the other around my back. In one smooth, practiced motion, she lifted me into her arms again.

I let out a soft breath. My arms instinctively went around her neck.

She chuckled low. “You always melt the moment your feet leave the floor. I don’t even have to try hard. At 5’3" and 63 kilos, you’re lighter than my winter quilt.”

She carried me slowly to the bedroom, her hips shifting beneath me, her soft saree brushing against my arm. Her grip was so secure, so natural—it felt like I belonged there.

“You keep saying that you're an adult man of 28, and I’m an old woman of 53,” she said with a smile as she nudged open the door with her elbow, “Actually you are a weak little man of 28, captured helplessly in the arms of a tall old woman of 53. ”

She sat down on the edge of her big, soft bed, still holding me across her lap.

I nestled against her body. Her arms were around me like two strong, living cushions. She reached for a small jar of ayurvedic oil from the bedside table.

“Too much wedding fun for my baby boy,” she said with exaggerated affection. “Let Aunty make it all better.”

She pulled off my t-shirt from over my head. I was sitting on her lap bare bodied with just my shorts on.
She gently shifted me so that I was sitting sideways across her thighs, legs hanging off one side, back resting against the crook of her elbow like an oversized baby. She began rubbing the warm oil between her palms.

“Now don’t wiggle,” she said in a mock stern tone, “Or I’ll have to swaddle you.”

She began with my shoulders—strong, rhythmic circular motions. Her hands covered nearly my whole upper back. Her fingers pressed deeply, working out knots I didn’t know I had.

“Beta, so tense,” she murmured, “You need this kind of pampering every night. Maybe I should just cradle you to sleep every evening like a good boy.”

Her long fingers traveled down my arms, kneading gently. I could feel her breath in my ear, her voice low and affectionate.

Then she turned me slightly, easily repositioning me by lifting me sideways with both hands, and laid me across her lap face-down like a small child getting a massage. Her hand spanned the width of my back.

She worked her way down my spine, pressing carefully, lovingly.

“You’re so soft. I can’t believe you’re a grown man. I feel like I should be changing your diaper next,” she teased.

I groaned in embarrassment.

She laughed, a rich, throaty laugh that vibrated through her lap. “Arrey! My little baby is shy? But didn’t seem shy when my cousin carried him like a sack of wheat at the wedding?”

Once done, she cleaned her hands and reached down again.

Without asking, she slid one arm under my knees, the other behind my shoulders, and lifted me back up into a cradle-carry. I barely made a sound this time—just curled up instinctively against her chest.

She looked down at me with a warm, victorious smile.

“See? All clean, all oiled, all soft again.”
“Now, shall I put you down to sleep… or rock you for a while longer?”

I just murmured something incoherent, my face buried near her collarbone.

She took that as her answer.

She sat back in bed, rocking me gently in her arms, humming something old and soft, like a lullaby.

“You know, when I saw you at the Mall always hovering beside me… I never imagined you’d be on my lap like this. But I’m glad you are.”

She kissed the top of my head.

“My little man. My cute baby. My lap-sized darling.”

The room was quiet now.

The ceiling fan whirred gently above us. The warm glow of the bedside lamp bathed the walls in amber. Outside, faint city sounds echoed through the window—distant car horns, the rhythmic chirp of crickets. But inside, it was just the two of us.

I was nestled in her arms, cradled like a child. My legs dangled slightly over her lap, one of her arms firmly beneath my knees, the other wrapped securely around my shoulders. Her fingers stroked my arm slowly, rhythmically. My head rested against her soft chest, the warm rise and fall of her breath rocking me gently.

“So quiet now,” she murmured, tilting her head down to look at me. “Where’s my talkative little baby who argued so much at the wedding, hmm?”

I mumbled something incoherent, already halfway gone.

She smiled and shifted slightly, tightening her grip around my body, lifting me just a little higher against her chest, so that my face now nuzzled into the soft space between her neck and collarbone.

She placed her chin atop my head.

“You’re such a contradiction, you know,” she whispered. “You’re 28, an MBA, working in a fancy company… I'm an old woman of 53 and still, I can carry you like a schoolbag and rock you like a sleepy toddler.”

I felt her chest vibrate as she laughed quietly.

“It’s funny, beta. You keep reminding me I’m 25 years older... But the more you say it, the more I want to lift you. Hold you. Tuck you right here.”

She shifted again, drawing both legs up onto the bed, settling into a reclined position. She adjusted me like a bundle, carefully and lovingly, and laid back against the pillows with me resting fully on top of her—my head on her chest, my arms curled close to her sides, my body lying snug across her length.

She cradled me with both arms now, wrapping me up.

One large, warm hand stroked my back in slow circles.

“This is how you’re meant to sleep,” she whispered. “Not on a bed. Not on a pillow. But right here, on my chest. Where you fit so perfectly.”

My breath slowed. Her scent—warm sandalwood, soft cotton, something purely her—surrounded me like a cocoon. I couldn’t speak anymore. I just let myself sink into her chest, into her arms, into her strength.

She kept rocking slightly.

“Even when you're asleep,” she teased gently, “you look like a sleepy little schoolgirl who’s fallen asleep on her mother's breasts, after playtime. My little doll. My lap baby.”

She kissed the top of my head again.

“Good night, meri chhotu jaan.”
“I’ll be right here, holding you. Always.”

And with that, I finally drifted into the deepest sleep I'd had in years—safe, small, and completely wrapped in her embrace.

(To be continued..)