Rakhi...and its ''fallouts''?

Firstly, people who visit this blog and don't leave their footprints (read--comments), that is extremely undesirable behaviour and highly unwarranted, too!!! In future, refrain from such unsociable behaviour...your comments act as my inspiration!!!

This blog is inspired by the musings of Rashmi Bansal, editor of the popular youth magazine called JAM, and without due permission, I am lifting part of her post "The Ya-Ya Sister-Brotherhood" dated Aug 19, 2005 from her blogsite http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/ for your perusal. As you will obviously understand as you go along, this pertains to the festival of Rakhi.

So here goes Rashmi:

"Rakhi can however be extremely trying - for those who have no siblings of the opposite sex. And they are inevitably tempted into creating 'rakhi brothers' and 'rakhi sisters'.This is thoroughly and completely avoidable. Simply because there are too many examples of girls tying rakhis to the boy next door door for 15 years before realising "Arrey! I'm in love with this guy".And needless and endless complications follow. No one plots for this to happen but nature has its mysterious ways.

You can't ensure you will feel brotherly or sisterly except to a real, blood-related brother or sister.So what do you do? I say we also promote same-sex rakshabandhan. Sisters tie to sisters, brothers to brothers. Only kids to their (same sex) best friends.I know this sounds strange, and slightly kinky. But it's way less kinky than eventually marrying your rakhi brother or sister!"

Pretty incisive, to say the least. And the points are pretty valid. I can say that from personal experiences. I won't, at this point, verify, what exactly those expereinces have been, but I'm sure, as I go along, they will eventually surface. For the present, lets assume I have sufficient knowledge and authority on this subject to be commenting on the issue.

For those who feel...''Issue? What issue?...This is pretty trivial stuff and doesn't necessarily concern me!"...my advice to them is to look around more closely, and observe relationships in and around you and I'm sure you'll realise the validity of Rashmi's point. These days, most relationships at an adolescent level and even slightly beyond that, are governed by peer pressure more than self-willingness.

So we are governed by the superficial desire of having a girlfriend and it seems to us to be an issue of overriding concern and one that has to be dealt with grave urgency. Though this desire is also partly due to physiological wants, let us assume at this point, that we have enough control over our primitive urges (and of course, we have other means to satisfy such urges, I won't dwell on that).

To continue, this desire manifests within us in various ways and gives rise to a lot of frustrations. Some of us treat these frustrations as a stepping stone to further success, some simply give up (now,would that be me?) and some of us develop alternative stategies on the path of achieving our final goal. One of these strategies is to maximize time spent with the other sex on the pretext of being ''rakhi brothers'' (here I am only concentrating on the motives of the ''superior'' sex, since i consider the motives of the ''fairer'' sex at creating ''rakhi brothers'' to be less ego-maniacal and more practically oriented like affection, self-protection, caring sensibilties and so on).

This is an art developed by people who crave for attention from girls, per se, and what better method than appealing to their sensibilities on the pretext of being a brother! Blood-brothers hold a special place in the hearts of all girls and its just a matter of capturing some of that heart-space for yourself! What does a man want when he desires a girlfriend...to spend quality time with her, to be enveloped in her fragrance, to be mesmerised by her words, her touch, her affection...if you can get all that without any effort (actually some initial effort, but nothing compared to what you would be doing if you were to do it the right way!), what more can you possibly want?

Except perhaps to transcend the gap from being a ''brother'' to being a lover? Relax, that's not even a major concern for those who play their cards the right way. Even an innocent man can be convinced that he's guilty if he's told the same thing over and over again...and here we are talking about matters of the heart! Why blame a girl when she falls in love with her ''rakhi brother''? That is what was intended from the beginning! So girls, be slightly wary of people who go overboard in trying to prove their brotherliness (does the word exist?), there might be ulterior motives lurking! And guys, I know there's nothing fair in love and war...but c'mon be more sporting!!!

Lots of unsolicited advice for one day...more later:)

Disclaimer: This blog is not meant to hurt any sensibilities. NO OFFENCE MEANT or INTENDED. Just a pure spark of inspiration.