Week 1538 - A Thread That Stitches Us Together

The Concept Explained

Counting Down to 90 - Week 1579

Why 1579

Bhavin's WritingsBhavin Jankharia

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Each year, my sisters come home to tie rakhis. I have one younger sister and a host of cousins and except for one year in 1994 when we were away and during the first two Covid years, we’ve always met on the day of the festival or a few days before or after, depending on everyone’s convenience.

Yesterday was that day. My banevis accompany my sisters, one sister comes with her Mom, my masi, and my Mom calls her brother, my mama over with their children. It becomes a full house with almost 30 odd relatives meeting in the evening, the sisters tying rakhis and putting chandlas, all of us feeding each other sweets, exchanging gifts and cash in envelopes (from me to my sisters) and then just chatting away. 

I usually get 7 rakhis at one time, six tied in person and one from a sister in Singapore tied by proxy. One rakhi comes by post from London, typically a few days later and I wear it for a few hours. Another London rakhi has stopped because my dear cousin died unfortunately a few years ago. 

Everyone knows what rakshabandhan stands for so those details are irrelevant to this piece.

The point is the meeting. 

Decades ago, when we were kids, it was a day long function…after my sisters would tie us rakhis, we would have lunch, sleep and then go to the Shivaji Park beach in the evening to immerse the rakhis in the sea…that beach doesn’t really exist anymore. It used to be fun…a whole bunch of people meeting, the adults gossiping on the beach, while we kids would be running around playing in the sand.

Many of the rakhsabandhan days are now a blur and I barely remember the ones during the dark ages of medical college and residency. I think I used to come home for a few hours to quickly get the rakhis tied and then just run back to LTMMC. But as I’ve grown older, even though we do meet each other separately a few times a year,  I’ve come to appreciate the fact that this cultural festival manages to bring us all together in one place at one time.

I remember the years not too long ago when my sister’s kids and my kids were always at home during rakshabandhan. The girls would tie rakhis to their brothers and there was laughter and gaiety and pranking. We miss that.

My wife ties rakhi to her brother in his house. This year, that will be next week. This is a smaller affair, but one I cherish because we get to meet her side of the family at leisure. 

We are almost never around in the city during Diwali anymore, nor do we go to each other’s houses during the last day of pajosan as we used to earlier. The only time we land up meeting for a ritual now is rakshabandhan and more and more I’ve begun to treasure this occasion because it brings different parts of the family together, even if for a short while. 

I coined this couplet that captures my thoughts and emotions with some help from Gemini.

ज़िन्दगी की दौड़-भाग में, मिलने का मौका कहाँ मिलता है, 

ये राखी का धागा ही है, जो हर साल दिलों को सिलता है।