Yesterday was Raksha bandhan,
It reminded me of my senior Dr.Jegadeeshan, he must be in some corner of Malaysia every rakhi brings back memories of him. He would be desolate on the day to quote him”I hate this festival-la, all girls turn up uh to tie rakhi, there are so many that I can’t lift my hand-la they don’t see-yah that it massacres my reputation as Casanova-la.”
Another classmate was thoroughly upset when he heard us saying that he was very brotherly.
The greatest bhaiyyaland festival, marketed by bollywood after Karwah chauth. This event has well supported by Archie’s, and any other commercial venture piggy riding on the great Indian culture, of bhaiyyaland.
My granddad told me no self respecting south Indian girl should tie a rakhi, considering that the south is a matriarchal and sometimes matrilineal society. Women are as educated as the men.
Another friend had another way of putting it, all the KMC and MIT crowd out there this was from Anupa Chaco she reckoned that the festival of Rakhi was there because our culture could not accept the platonic relationship between a man and woman. It had to be either the ever glorified holy brother-sister or the sexual kind.
Declaring XYZ is my Rakhi brother seem to make it all respectable.
Yet I can’t imagine tying a Rakhi to Manoj, he is my friend, probably with Anupa being far away my best one, trying to label this bonding into the bracket of bhaiyya-behen would be the ultimate insult of our friendship. Why is it so difficult to accept that someone is a friend, he or she is such a good friend, the person ceases to exist in physical form the person being male or female is irrelevant.
Why is it necessary to label bonding? Is it a way of re-enforcing boundaries that society binds us with?(after all the respectable society does not know of incest)
why can’t we just accept a good friend and thank god for the beautiful gift?
Be honest, how many platonic relationship between two normal people of the opposite sex have you encountered in these decades. No morality judgements from my side; i accept that to physically bond is the animal inside us. That's why it's difficult for many to accept the 'good friend' relation.
ReplyDeleteSame breath, people having rakhee brothers etc. require to build their self esteem and break the farce.
Arvind a friend is a friend sometimes mostly platonic sometimes not, but this Rakhi business is cloaking it with hypocrisy,
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