since it is Raksha Bandhan

i am sharing my story from Chicken Soup in which yours truly Ahem! got published! :) Hope all you managed to catch up with your brothers and sisters and had a good time! :)

Life was pretty much normal for a regular almost seven-year-old. She went to school, played with her friends and did her homework before she slept. Then one day, she noticed that her mother was getting bigger. Just the tummy really and then they told her she was going to have a baby brother or sister to play with. She was very excited. She hoped it would be a boy. She wanted a brother’s wrist to tie a rakhi on and to get gifts on Bhaidooj.

Suddenly one day, her mother was in the hospital, and she was waiting there eagerly with her grandmother. Sometime later, she noted a flurry of activity and it was only afterwards that someone took pity on the little girl who kept asking everyone who passed by, “What happened? What happened?” Her prayers had been answered!

She went to see the baby. HER own brother. She was amazed at how tiny and fair he was. Wearing a pointy eared cap, he looked like a bunny rabbit. Her mother made her sit on the bed and put him on her lap. She held him as if he was something extremely fragile and precious as she let her fingers gingerly stroke his soft skin.

But this love affair was short lived. She quickly lost interest in the baby who did little more than sleep and have milk. Maybe she even felt a little resentful of the fact that the attention being divided. And also, she found that she had nothing in common with him, not taking into consideration the age gap! She just did not know what to do with him. But that did not stop her from being protective about him. She could kill anyone who would bother him and yet she was also a bit of a bully and not exactly the best big sister one could have. What a paradox of emotions!

Yet she was probably the person who was most proud of his achievements. She shed tears when he missed out on getting things he should have just by a whisker. And then one day, it was like a barrier was broken. Whether it was her brother’s precocious nature and genius mind or just a question of age, she still does not know, but she cannot thank her stars enough for the day that the great divide had been crossed. Suddenly they were cracking jokes, making fun of each other, ganging up against their parents and discussing movies. They made their own language which no one could fathom and drove everyone around them nuts! They knew that in each other, they had a strong shoulder of support and an ever-ready ear for listening. Always.

The brother always claimed that he would be happy to be rid of her when she got married. He would finally get some extra space in the house for his stuff. She bet him that he would cry. When it turned out that she was right after all, she did not do her normal victory dance at having won the bet. Later, after all concerned pairs of eyes had been dried and the tears had turned to smiles, she never let go a single opportunity to tease him about it. There was even some photographic evidence!

She was the one he called in the middle of the night to share the news of his internship and then his job. It was with her that he plotted to surprise their parents by flying down from across the seas when they were least expecting it. She was not in the same town, but the excitement was so infectious. Her hands were itching to call her parents and ask her brother what their faces looked like when they saw him standing at their doorstep at such an ungodly hour!

Before they knew he was not the baby she though he was. He had finished his graduation and was traveling abroad to study some more. They both hugged and cried again. But before he went away, he got to see his nephew. She loved seeing them together. There was some kind of an instant connection between them. She was proven right. Her son and her brother met only once a year, yet her son jumped up to his Mama as if he had known him forever and it always warmed the cockles of her heart to see the love. It broke a little too because they lived so far apart, but mostly she was just happy. Make that very happy.

This time when he came back, he had two kids to pamper. His sister had given birth to a daughter. He came loaded with gifts for all of them and yet again she was struck by how much her little brother had grown up. The the vernacular Didi was now replaced by a more hep Sis, but it sounded as good. He had picked up such perfect gifts for everyone. He was even looking rather mature with his French beard, but it took just one childhood memory to unleash those bouts of merciless teasing! Her son watched his mother and his uncle indulging in fist fight with a wide eyed wonder that she can never forget.

This time she saw her daughter who was just around 45 days old, take to him like a child takes to cotton candy. He, as always, amazed her by being superbly comfortable handling such a tiny baby and having actual conversations with her. Her son was still under his spell and she once again breathed in the perfection of the moment and her hand reached out to the nearest piece of wood…

And now, as she looks at her son and daughter, she is swept up in the emotions of it all. She remembers her son holding on tenderly to his little sister when she was put in his lap for the first time. She notices how he runs to her cradle every time she cries and how she has eyes for no one but him when he is around. She sees the occasional resentment and anger too. She gets a little worried and then smiles. She knows how this is going to turn out eventually. At least she hopes she knows. She says a little prayer thanking God for this sight, asking Him to bless them with an equally special relationship and once again reaches for that piece of wood…

Sometimes it’s a good thing that we cannot pick our relatives!