For Dony, on Raksha Bandhan

He was exactly 361 days younger than me. He was the apple of my mother’s eye. He was the SON in our typically Punjabi family, the heir, the prince. He was the person on whom I practiced my skills of bossing over hapless males. When we were little kids, he was the one who would follow me around, and get blamed for most of the breakages in the house. I being a girl would not be suspected. He would pull the dog’s tail, but would also share his meal with the pet. He would sit for long hours on the steps of our home, telling fantastically wild tales to the dog, and the dog would look at him adoringly and swallow each one of them hook line and sinker. He also blinded my dolls and pulled out their eyelashes. Oh no, I did not mind it, I hated dolls and loved books. Once he threw my Enid Blyton into the pond, and I knocked him over and sat on him beating him up.

When we grew up, he hated all the boys who would befriend me, and would mimic them mercilessly. He grew stronger and larger, and it became harder to beat the hell out of him. He was the only one in my family who could carry a tune. He had an awesome sense of humour and a ready answer for anything. He was also someone who attracted trouble and accidents. That never seemed to quench his spirit. When he met with an accident and we weren’t sure that his eye would be okay, he put a patch over the eye, picked up a bottle of Old Monk and limped on his fractured foot and said he was the Pirate from Treasure Island. He would encourage us to make jokes about his being accident prone. He was my very handsome younger brother.

When he was 23 years old, the joke turned sour. That accident was his last one. They brought his body back, lifeless. My elder son kept nudging him and asking him to wake up. It was the first time I was faced with death, and was devastated. There would be more in the coming years – but this was the first, and it was something I took personally. I was angry with Death and with God. It took me a long time to recover. I think my mother never did. My father went from being a participant in the game of life to a spectator.

I have never talked about this, never written about it … but there is something about blogging – it makes one open up. So this Raksha Bandhan, I hope and pray for you, my sweet younger brother because I am sure that you are reincarnated somewhere. Where-ever you are – may you have the happy and long life that you were cheated of in the time you lived with us.