Swaying between whether I should have been happier with a brother or without… I met a ’bro-sans-friend’ on Rakhi. She told me how to forge relationships with a simple thread; “Tying a Rakhi has several positives as well. Even I don’t have a brother. But I used this festival as a great time to tell certain men to buzz off. Rakhi was a special time to ward the flies off. Have you seen in the movies how a girl ties a Rakhi to a suitor as a message that she is not romantically interested in him?” Corny isn’t it? Just because you can’t turn him down, you make him your brother. That would cure him of all romantic feelings!

Something similar happened to us in our late teens. We also had some supposedly “Rakhi brothers”. We had some family friends of tamilian brothers. A girl friend of ours had a major crush on one of them. She would often ask us his whereabouts and would try to gauge what are our feelings towards him. He was a typical buddy and often he would put his arm around us and chat for hours. I assured the girl that he is just like a good friend.

Then one fine day just before Rakhi, she went and bought some Rakhis for us and on our behalf called these guys as well and arranged for a big festival at her place. Since she was tying one to her brother, she put it straight to us, “why don’t you girls also tie one to your friend.” All of us were caught in a situation in her family where all the people had this keen curious look of anticipation and apprehension, on the guys and us. My sister said, “What the heck. If it puts an end to all the controversies and speculations, so be it”. So we tied Rakhis to that guy and his brothers as well, for close to 10 yrs. We didn’t feel any different emotions towards them than we had before. But poor guys, shelled out gifts for us regularly. Since we really felt guilty on taking such extravagant gifts, my mother treated them to grand lunches.

Much later when all three brothers went out of city for their careers, we lost touch. Then one fine day one of them just asked us, “why was the need to tie a Rakhi?” The story that unfolded did create a lot of fun among us. Since then we stopped trying Rakhis to them. Since that girl in question was not in their lives so we found it really futile. They eventually got married (not to us) and had kids. But even now we are “attei” – which means Bua or aunt(father’s sister) in Tamil, to their kids and “nanad” to their wives.

They still come and put their arms around us and chat for hours. They still come and hug my mom and kiss her like she is their own mom. They still tease us that “you girls fleeced us for nothing for 10 years; that too when we didn’t even have great jobs.” The feeling of friendship, deep friendship, akin to brotherly feeling was mutual. We never needed a certificate to tell the world about it. But as the society grew around us, we understood the pros and cons of not having a brother, and the clear implications on our characters, if we instead had friends of the opposite sex.

Maybe if my sister was a brother or I was a boy, things and situations would have been different. But then why cry over that what was not meant to be. I realized that in a dire situation, I am my own protector.

There are brothers who will go to any lengths to stand by their sisters. There are exceptions who don’t really care what the true purpose of the festival was, when it was started. The festival is not only fast loosing its value, but also getting distorted. One comment really saddened me, “I have tied a Rakhi to my brother all my life, but when my husband slapped me, my brother found faults with me. He wouldn’t let me come home, as his wife wouldn’t like me to permanently settle in her home. So I am living in a rented accommodation.”

My sister delivered a baby girl this month. When her son was born 7 yrs back, she was a little upset cause they were fervently hoping for a girl. One of our dear friends said this time, “One boy one girl, now your family is complete.” I don’t feel left out in the permutation combination of god. I don’t feel our family is incomplete in any way. As long as you are loved in your family, it doesn’t matter what gender is your sibling. Today I can say that I never missed having a brother, since I got all the love from my sister and the brotherly love from good friends.

I know two such incidents from affluent, highly educated families, where the girls, now in their late 60s, are blaming their brothers for not looking after the ailing widow mother, who died of sheer neglect. They lament, “If only we had more sisters instead of brothers.”

I understand now why my parents never really reacted to “You have no son?” Cause they found it futile to talk to such people. But I feel that a change needs to be initiated by us. We cannot expect a change to happen unless we become a part of that change.

Unless the educated, affluent and the liberal minded people slowly change some rituals to include the importance of having a daughter, instead of harping on a brother or son, the social outlook towards the necessity of a son will not change. Maybe we could have a different type Rakhi. Or start a trend of tying Rakhi to women.

In Bengal Rabindranath Thakur started a Rakhi where Hindus tied rakhis to Muslims and vice versa. The need of the hour says we restart such customs. Who knows maybe we can really use this custom to awaken feelings of peace, harmony, value of the girl child and the best of what is known as "brotherly feelings".

Princess Baatcheet