Rakshabandhan 2020 Amidst Pandemic

-Soumadeep Chatterjee

A sister is a blessing for a brother

Rakhsha Bandhan is an event celebrated in India, where all sisters tie Rakhis on their brother's hand as a symbol of protection from harm. It is influenced by Hindu tradition & widely celebrated by Indians. It is generally held on a full moon day (Purnima). The brother in return gifts the sister as a thanks in return.

A bond of brother & sister is pure & worth preserving

It had been hard due to the pandemic to connect with family members properly due to distance, absence of proper transportation. Other than the facts of social distancing, the distance which has got created between hearts is also difficult to bear.

"Mayer's (1960: 219) observation for central India would not be inaccurate for most communities in the subcontinent:

A man's tie with his sister is accounted very close. The two have grown up together, at an age when there is no distinction made between the sexes. And later, when the sister marries, the brother is seen as her main protector, for when her father has died to whom else can she turn if there is trouble in her conjugal household.

The parental home, and after the parents' death the brother's home, often offers the only possibility of temporary or longer-term support in case of divorce, desertion, and even widowhood, especially for a woman without adult sons. Her dependence on this support is directly related to economic and social vulnerability."^[3]

 — Bina Agarwal in A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia (1994), quoting Adrian C. Mayer, Caste and kinship in Central India (1960)

Sisters long for chocolate 🍫 as a gift upon their brothers

Reference-

Agarwal, Bina (1994), A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia, Cambridge University Press, p. 264, ISBN 978-0-521-42926-9