Raksha Bandhan…and More

Current Tune: Bhayia mere, Rakhi ke bandhan ko nibhaana, bhayia mere, choti bahen ko naa bhulaanaa

Raksha Bandhan is today, but we celebrated yesterday as Suraj (my brother) is going on a business trip starting today. He will be gone from Tues-Thursday (returning Thursday night) and will be driving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (about four hours from our home). He is filling in for an Operations Manager there who is gone for maternity leave and will be doing this up/down to Milwaukee for six weeks.

If you have not heard about our festival of Raksha Bandhan, you can read more here. Its basically a brother-sister festival where the sister ties a colourful ribbon (called Rakhi) on the right hand of her brother. The brother in return, vows to take care and protect his sister. Both brother and sister exchange sweets as a show of acceptance of the rakhi (in our family the brother also gives some kind of monetary or other gift to his sister). Raksha means protection and Bandhan means bond in Hindi.

Bhatia Family always has a get together in Chicago as my father goes to get Rakhi tied by his two sisters, and I also tie rakhi to 7 cousin-brothers, 3 cousin-sister-in-laws, plus my own brother, Suraj. I have put some photos up in the Our Family section in Our Photos of my father’s side of the family in Chicago.

We left early on Sunday morning for Chicago, in order to return by early evening as Prasad & Kavita were also coming to our home to celebrate Raksha Bandhan. Since last year, I have been tying Rakhi to Prasad (he is just like brother) and to Kavita (as she is just like my sister-in-law). This year in rememberance of her own brother in India, Kavita tied Rakhi to Suraj. We had a great time with them!

Spoke to Neeraj briefly in the car while going to Chicago yesterday. His family was going to celebrate Rakhi today (Monday) and he was also was going to speak to his father today also about us. He said that he would call late on Monday evening IST time, but I have waited and waited for his call but it didn’t come. I hope that everything is fine and that he calls me ASAP.

He said that he was really missing me, and I really miss him too. Since he has left, we have spoken for about 15 mins max (that is our all-time low). He’s been really good of calling — except for today; I am not sure what happened, but I am quite worried. I haven’t slept properly either since he has left; just too much stress. I am glad that I am still @ home; don’t know what I would do if I was on a project somewhere far far away.

Mumma called Bombay and Surat to talk to my Mamas (Mumma has three younger brothers: Lalit Mama, Gulo Mama, and Roop Mama). Both places, they celebrated Raksha Bandhan on Sunday as today there was no holiday in schools or offices in India. Only spoke to Roop Mama as Lalit Mama and nani had already gone to sleep. So my Mumma still doesn’t know that Lalit Mama visited Neeraj. Maybe I should tell her… we will see. Spoke to Gulo Mama and Santosh Mami in Surat and it seems that they are all fine. No one received our Rakhis yet, I guess we were late this year so they just saved last year’s Rakhis’ and used that.

Prasad & Kavita are going to come for dinner tonight, so that should be nice. They are going to take me shopping for jeans as they wanted to get me something “useful” for Rakhi.

Boredom and anxiety is creeping in — most likely will sleep the day away. Alvida.

Bhagwan - Sab kuch sahi karna hamare liye. Neeraj ki khabar jaldi se mil jaaye. Suraj aache se pahunch jaaye. Jai Mata Di. Jai Shri Ram. Jai Shri Krishna.