Raksha Bandhan

Today is the Rakhi day in India, the full moon day of July (Shraavana), the day to celebrate the bond between brothers and sisters. Didi called early in the morning to wish Mr. Awaara. Every year before this day, we will receive a Rakhi in a card from her. Rakhi, is a holy thread with nice decorations to tie on the brother's wrist. Mr. Awaara must have had at least seven with him, during all these years he has been away.

The festival is marked by the tying of a rakhi, or holy thread by the sister on the wrist of her brother. The brother in return offers a gift to his sister and vows to look after her. It is not necessary that the rakhi can be given only to a brother by birth; any male can be "adopted" as a brother by tying a rakhi on the person, that is "blood brothers or sisters", whether they are cousins or a good friend.

This is what is written in Wikipedia. It is interesting festival and I couldn't find anything similar in Chinese culture. Chinese have festivals to celebrate the solidarity and kinship, but nothing specifically between brothers and sisters. Although Mr. Awaara received Rakhi every year from Didi, but I haven't seen a real Raksha Bandhan myself. I remember I once asked him whether I could tie the rakhi on his wrist, he refused since that was between brothers and sisters. I finally know that brothers should also send gifts back to their sisters. It seems that Mr. Awaara was not doing that at all. I don't know whether he has vowed to protect didi in their phone conversations.

There is another brother-sister festival that happened during the time I was there, 'Bhai Dooj'. It is interesting to see the bond between brothers and sisters were so much celebrated in the Indian culture. We heard from Didi this morning that Urmi was expecting a brother now, because then her kids will have a Mamu later. I am thinking of aother reason, she will have great festivals to celebrate every year.

Later today, there is a BBC news item, saying the Indian festival market is full of products coming from China. A lady who used to make Rahkri to support her family, can't compete with things from China any more. On the TV screen, she is very sad. Customers are split two sided. One said Chinese product might have used dangerous material and not safe, so she would buy indian made Rahkri. The other said made in China Rahkri is cheaper, and more to choose from.