A Tale of Four Rakhis - 1

“That’s very expensive, Monu! It makes no sense to spend so much! Besides, in the US, they hardly know the dates of festivals and all. The day it reaches him, he will tie it… I think it is foolish to spend such a big amount on this!”

I nodded. Half-heartedly. And being my favouritest aunt, besides of course, being a woman of extraordinary sensitivity, I guess she could see the half-heart reflected on my face. So, her frustration on my ‘silliness’ mingled with a sadness for not letting me do what I so wanted to, topped with 63 years of middle-class sensibilities left quite a helpless expression on her face.

“I wouldn’t be adamant. I shouldn’t be. I’ll do this on my own, the day after, when I get my salary”. It was unfair to ask her to shell out 1150 rupees because I needed to courier a Rakhi to America, even if it was just a 2-day loan from her. It was unfair to expect her to understand what it meant to me…

~~~~~~~~~~

A year ago, I had couriered another Rakhi. On behalf of my best friend. To her brother. Rem was studying in the US, and she was atrociously late in posting the Rakhi to her brother in India. So, she had called me up two days before the festival and asked me to do her the favour.

That evening, I travelled from one shop to the next and the next and the countless nexts, spending a good few minutes at each shop, but I just couldn’t settle on a Rakhi. Most of them were rather bling-y – and I have always hated too much bling in everything in life. Most others were quite sad – the singly thread-y ones did not evoke a happy festival-ish feeling. Besides they did not seem to symbolize the ‘unbreakable’ bond…

I hadn’t realized exactly how many shopkeepers I must have left cursing me, until it dawned on me that it was dusk. Bulbs glowed bright, hanging right above the Rakhis spread out on the pavements, in the stalls, in the shops. And it was then that I also realized that my feet felt sore, my legs had a feverish pain in them, and my throat was dry. I had been out shopping for one Rakhi for more than three hours. I wasn’t exactly satisfied with the one I chose finally, but it sure was the best of the lot.

Another half an hour, and the couriers would send today’s dispatch away. I was new in the Mahim area and still had to figure the location of a good courier. As I ran from pillar to post asking for DTDC, Overnite and the likes, and as I finally found one and begged the guy to give me 5 minutes to put the address on the envelope with a pretty colour and in my best handwriting, I acknowledged to myself the real reason behind my taking so long in this whole activity…

I was not doing it for Rem. I was doing it for myself – for the two decades behind me when I couldn’t, when it was not RIGHT for me to do it…

And I thought it was only right for me to write what I eventually wrote on the envelope:

"On behalf of Rem... From Monsoon"