A Special Rakhshabandhan Gift (August 16th 2008)



I wrote this few years ago and whenever I read it, it never fails to warm my heart, hence sharing... 


This time Rakshbandhan was a very different experience, different in a very special way. It was raining very heavily so we (my sister, younger brother and I) hired a car to visit our relatives in town.  For those of you who are not aware of Indian festivals, Rakshabandhan is one of the festivals where sisters tie bracelets (Rakhi) around their brother's wrists, upon tying Rakhi brothers give gifts to their sisters. I've always loved this festival, and I'm certain that my fellow Indian sisters love it too! ;) Just like any other festival, Rakshabandhan too has a relevance, a meaning to it. This festival is a symbol of bond between siblings, of brother's vow to protect his sister and sister's prayers for the well-being of her brother.  Although its always been fun tying Rakhis and accepting gifts from brothers, for some reason while performing the ritual, I would always grow a bit emotional..not a lot, just a bit, only within, thinking about the sentiment behind the festival.
Coming back to that rainy and windy day, so after meeting our relatives and spending sometime with them we decided to go back home and while we were on our way back, Minku (my younger brother) suggested that it would be good if we could meet our cousin Ambrish as well. Honestly, it never occurred to me that I should meet Ambrish, maybe because as selfish as it may sound, when i think about brothers, its just both my 'natural' brothers who reign my mind. Ambrish is our cousin, he is a very bright kid. He initially used to live with us, but later got a scholarship to study at a very reputed public school in Dehradun. Although we all agreed to go to Ambrish's school to meet him, I was still not very happy with the idea, given that it was raining so bad and we also had no clue whether the school would allow us to meet him. However, once we reached Ambrish's school we were asked to wait for sometime until the program ended. So we waited outside the auditorium, listening to prayer songs accompanied by tabla and harmonium. Later when the program got over, a huge crowd of boys and girls aged between 9-15 rushed towards the exit, and in the crowd we saw Ambrish. Ambrish came running to us the moment he saw us and as usual even before I could properly see his face, he was bending towards our feet (to touch our feet to take our blessings). We told Ambrish that we'd come to meet him for Rakshabandhan, and then both my sister and I tied Rakhi to him and fed him sweets. After we finished tying rakhi to him, Minku secretly slid some money into Ambrish's pocket so that he could give it to us in order to complete the ritual. Ambrish, then paying least attention to Minku's attempt pulled out two beautiful pieces of sparkling trinkets from his pocket and very innocently handed it over to us saying 'didi ji ye maine apke liye liya tha' ('dear sister, I got this for you')....I just couldn't resist myself, my eyes brimmed with tears, I was all choked up mostly with guilt realizing that Ambrish was carrying those pieces of jewellery in his pocket because he knew that we would come to meet him. While both my sister and I stood there with tears in our eyes, Ambrish blushed. guess it was too much for him to handle two grown up girls getting all teared up in front of him. The next moment, both my sister and I without uttering a single word, pulled Ambrish towards us hugged him and thanked him for a wonderful gift that he gave us.

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