the might of the silken thread...!

Every year on the day of Rakhi Purnima, we used to be regaled with the same story during our school assembly. We would recite the story in our head as the teacher assigned for that assembly recounted the adventures of Alexander, the Great, the Indian king- Puru and a strand of intervening thread that dictated the course of the story. The story itself was quite harmless—the anxious wife of Alexander, the Great presented King Puru with an auspicious thread (Rakhi), thus symbolizing the bond between a brother and a sister. This, in turn, saved the life of Alexander, the Great, who would, otherwise, probably have been responsible for raising the blood count on Puru’s conscience by one.

This story, for some mysterious reason, always ended with an unusual statement. We were always told that even though Rakhi has generally been shared between a brother and a sister, anyone with any amount of affection for another person could tie this particular auspicious knot.

By the time we were through with breakfast, the dining hall would be buzzing with anticipation of discovering who gets a Rakhi from whom. For girls, it was a popular way of warding off unwanted male attention. Oh, how the boys would avoid their crushes the entire day so that the poor fellows weren’t assigned the role of a brother by their objects of obsession! This always proved to be an infinite source of amusement for the rest of us. But then we would sober up soon enough and console those unfortunate chaps by reminding them that the girl might be implying that she considers him her knight in shining armour!

 Rakshabandhan used to be such a big deal! Never having a biological brother, and with my cousins living so far away, I had made many of my acquaintances my brother. Now, looking back, as I sit across from a dolefully empty schedule, staring back at me with pitiful eyes, I miss those days dearly.

Even though I am too far away and too old to tie a Rakhi on my many brothers’ wrists, here’s wishing every one of them a HAPPY RAKSHABANDHAN!!!