Kartikey Sehgal has a post at Young India, "Raksha Bandhan: When Sisters Steal Your Money", that was as amusing as it was a whimsical.
Thinking about the tradition here in Tamil Nadu, I could not find anything that is like Raksha Bandhan. After stressing and straining my mind, I gave up and thought I should philosophize a bit about it instead.
Come to think of it, who are the greatest oppressors of a married woman? Her mother in law and sister in law, of course, not counting the husband. This may not be true in every family, but mostly this is the case.
And yet, in our mythology of ancient times and the recent- cinemas, it is the mother and sister that are revered more holy than God Himself. If Ramayana is about devotion to mother, it can also alternately be read as a story of devotion to sister. After all, it is to avenge Surpanaka that Ravana came to where the exiled trio had camped, and it is because he fell for a beautiful woman- Sita- that Ravana met his end.
Now, this is a cautionary tale, right? It is Dharma to obey your mother, it is Dharma to avenge your sister, but don't fall in love with a woman, you will come to grief- is that what the psyche of the India male makes of it? I don't know. But I do.
Seriously speaking, I am aware of two beliefs about the brother-sister relationship.
The first is that, when a girl is dead, God will let her see everyone that she loved, but He does not let her see her brothers (and vice versa, of course). I don't know why there is no place in heaven for brothers and sisters together -may be Kartikey does :) -, but as we all know by now, His ways are mysterious and inscrutable- and in the words of Wendell Berry in another context,
"Explain it how you will, the only
thing explainable will be
your explanation".
That is a good enough source of anxiety ( and here I would like to contrast the Hindu and Christian visions of afterlife- when a Hindu dies, he gets to take a look at the people he had loved, and then it is off to a new life in a new age; and for a Christian, it is an eternal outing in a garden in eternal sunshine with your eternal loved ones- I don't know which is good, depends on the people that you have loved, I suppose)- I am digressing, and digressing away from my digression, so I will come to the point.
The second source of anxiety is that, should your sister cry, you will come to grief. And again, no questions, as Wendell Berry said,
"A tree forms itself in answer
to its place and to the light,"
when something as dynamic as a belief grows, it grows like it should, and people who ask questions are the ones that should supply the answers.
Where was I? Lost the point, totally.
What I mean is, what with our anxiety about the fate of our sisters, the love we have for them, the loss that we will suffer without them, and the grief their tears will cause us, I mean what is a gift or two to purchase some peace of mind?
Again, in the words of Wendell Berry in a totally unrelated context,
What a consolation it is, after
the explanations and the predictions
of further explanations still
to come, to return unpersuaded
to the woods, entering again
the presence of the blessed trees.
Anyone out there grudge such small token of love in the face of such a gift?
The tamil sisters pray for their brothers during the karthigai month by lighting lights to please the god.
ReplyDeleteIn turn the brothers send their sisters karthigai money.