A day in the life of LIFE

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post do not bear any resemblance to the author's personal experiences.

Come, the month of August and the Indian Tri colors are seen everywhere. It is also the month of Janmashtami, with govindaas filling every Gulli of Mumbai, and breaking the tallest Handi is quite an achievement in itself.

But other than these two festivals, there is one other 'major' one, termed Rakhi [no not the dudette with Mika] this one is - Raksha Bandhan, the bond of love between bhaiyya and behna..

I fully endorse the festival as my 'sisters’ regularly send the rakhis by post and I dutifully adorn the same. Rakhis have been used since time immemorial as the symbol of protection awarded by the brothers to their siblings of the opposite gender. For me, they also served as the ornaments on my shoulder for the role of “Lord Krishna” that I portrayed in one of the fancy dress competitions loooooong ago.

Coming to talk of sisters, I never have had any of my own, and so, in standard I, when there was an examination question - “How many sisters do you have?”,I innocently counted up all my first cousins and wrote 10 as the answer..The teacher, gave my mom a “Why do you want to set up a cricket team?” look when she came to collect my report card, and till date my Mom doesn’t know why.

By class 6, the norms were a little different and girls spoke to ‘boys’ only under two considerations:

One, you need to be the class topper, so that they can borrow your notes
Or, you need to be their Rakhi Bhaiyyas so that they are sure of your intentions.

Oh My God, it took me a couple of years after that to get educated about the world and its practices, and till then I continued to remain under the impression that the number of Rakhis on one’s hand were directly proportional to the chivalry that one possessed, very much akin to the Rajput Queens who tied them on the hands of the invaders to save their husbands from being taken prisoners, as taught to us during History lessons.

I even went distributing hair clips (mom’s selection) and a Cadbury’s Relish chocolate to my dear sisters as their rightful gifts. And 5 bucks per head was quite an expensive proposition in the year 1994, for a class 6 student.

Soon it was class 10, and the number of rakhis being tied around guys’ wrists went down, as also the number of bhaiyyas wanting to flaunt the same, though most mothers continued to doubt their sons except when their “rakhi sisters” called up home.

In fact as we moved to college, Raksha Bandhan happened to be declared an informal yet mandatory holiday for the guys gang.

Engineering was quite a different story. I knew girls who ran after guys who they thought were behind them and entangled them in the bond of brotherly love to crush their only hope of passing semester exams. The transformation of the red roses on the day of the college fest to yellow on friendship day and then gradually to white coupled with an Aarti Thali on Raksha Bandhan, was quite traumatic for a few fellow friends.

I’ve also heard of a Management school in Chennai where guys and girls refer to each other as “cousins” among themselves… I know one school where I would not want to study.

The work place is actually a mixed bag. I have received rumors that the freshers’ batch that recently entered the corporate campus has celebrated the festival with pomp and splendor. And apparently there have been a couple of guys who sacrificed themselves to the chains of “brotherly love” for the general good of humanity. God bless the noble souls.

The smart guys are staying away from the canteen to avoid the glimpse of anything that is silvery and shiny..

And to depict the mood of the moment, I am attaching an awesome picture below.

No! it’s not Janmashtami, It’s the setting of Raksha Bandhan…