err...bhaiya apothecary there's a fly in the ointment you're selling

The other day in the middle of a seemingly regular conversation a friend asked me if I remembered my sister, who's long been dead, often. For many years I had been indifferent to this requiem of reality, alternately banishing and stowing it away. Maybe there was unwashed pain. But of late, and that accounted for my reply in the affirmative, I've been opening long locked boxes. An occasion like Rakhee evokes special memories and makes me wonder what it would've been like..

One of my very good friend's little sister started tying me rakhees sometime back in school. And now several years hence she goes into an overdrive every year before rakhee asking me to visit her several hundred miles away and hardly ever reminding me of the gifts she so rightfully deserves. I would have had never imagined what had started solely because of how regularly I used to go to my friend's place would grow into something so redeeming. It brings a smile to the lips - one that outlives seasons until the next year.

Schooldays were witness to quite a few rakhee tales. The one that I especially like occurred in the 8th class. This girl S got to know of this guy P (a big bully in class whom the girls frowned upon) who was interested in her. It didn't help when we told her of how serious P was about her. Scared he might do something, she hatched a master plan. A day before rakhee she brought a box full of chocolates and a 'cute' rakhee to school. In the recess she cornered P literally and told him he had to be her brother. P, in a show of manly defiance, clenched his palms together ( to-get-her) in the back. She held out her token of sisterly trust before him and enticed him with her forbidden fruit (chocolates!!) while he steadfastly refused to give in to it and thus give up hopes of his amorous liaisons. This continued for a good 40 mins until the teacher had to separate the desperate sister-to-be and the brother that never was.

But credit should be given to our man P for choosing the path of righteousness because guys did use rakhee to get up, close and personal..you see they could always pass off a little mischief as brotherly concern. Whoever spoke about the means justifying the ends!