Raksha Bandhan

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Today is Raksha Bandhan and what better to talk about today than my relationship with my two elder brothers-Pachu & Pachantu. Now that I have disclosed their pet names to the whole world, I am sure that I will be killed mysteriously.  So as redemption, I am going to disclose my pet name too, its Amuni. You can take some time to laugh your heads off, but I am yet to meet a person who is actually proud of his/her pet name. :)

As anyone with a brother can vouch that having a brother is a blast, I too had a blast growing up with my elder brothers, but being the only girl I had much more fun being a witness to the boxing matches between them. And sometimes even being a victim even though I was never a participant in their matches. Like for example when I was around ten, my eldest bro, Pachu hit me with a wooden bat. My mistake being that I was in close proximity to my bat wielding bro. I know, I know accidents happen and I am convinced till date that it was one.

My eldest bro, Pachu, and I have 6 years of age difference, so we had very less fights between us. I think of him as the most calm and genteel person. I mean even if a mosquito were to sit on him and bite him, he would gently shoo it away rather than hit it. But as a teenager he had quite a reputation, my mom had a tough time handling him. He was the one who hid cigarettes in his hand and smoked them in the toilet. And when he was caught red-handed he quickly had a few tulsi leaves, so that he would not have cigarette breath. Needless to say this was all free entertainment to me and I enjoyed watching his escapades. There are quite a few anecdotes related to Pachu during his teenage years and we still tease him about it. I remember during my tenth exams, he was at home having finished his graduation and in search of a job. He used to watch TV a lot and I used to be disturbed, but even though I was irritated I never said him anything. One day he realized that I was unable to study and apologized for disturbing my studies. That’s my brother, he would never hurt even a fly intentionally but sometimes he’s so naïve that he doesn’t realize the consequences of his actions. There was a year in my life when we were not on speaking terms and even though the reason seems trivial now, it still hurts me when I think about that period of my life.

My 2^nd elder bro, Pachantu and I are pretty close, since there is only an age difference of 3 years. He is the angry young (not very young, mind you) man who was always up for an argument/fight during his teenage years. There are lot of incidents I remember about Pachantu but after this incident,(that I had blogged previously), my love and respect for him increased by thousand folds.

Also our love for music and books bound us together. He was the one who introduced me to Tintin, Archie comics, Calvin and Hobbes and Asterix which sparked my interest in reading books. So I owe a lot of what I am today to him. I also remember a particular incident that happened when I was in school. I was always this roly-poly chubby girl, but when I started my teen years I was unfortunately introduced to words like ‘figure’ and ‘fitness’. So in order to have a semblance of a figure I started exercising and became very self-conscious.  One day I was exercising at home and feeling dejected because whatever I did I could not get rid of my chubbiness. My bro saw me exercising and started teasing me about my weight. Something snapped in me and I started bawling and wailing about how I would never be slim and get to wear the trendy t-shirts that my friends used to sport. My brother amazingly pacified me holding my head in between his hands and assuring me that external beauty is not of much importance. I still remember the sincerity with which he was trying to convince me.

Pachantu is not a guy who easily shows his true feelings so most of them assume that he’s not an emotional guy. But people close to him know that this is not true. I think he’s like a coconut-hard on the outside but soft on the inside. :)

The three of us are busy in our own lives and families but not a day goes when I don’t think about my brothers and the happy times that we had in the past. Relationships between siblings are special because they are bound by blood, woven in the heart and cherished in the mind forever.