Rakshabandan

 

August and September are very special months in the Hindu religion. Many holidays take place and people fast a lot. This week there was the holiday called Rakshabandan where the sister gives her brothers a bracelet and also prays for them. She wishes good luck, health, wealth etc. This procedure doesn’t take long, but families in India are big, so all the cousin-sisters have to come, that means be at their own home, but also go to others. Thus the whole day can be used for giving the blessings. Generally the sister arrives at ones house, ties the bracelet round her brother’s arm, gives sweets to everybody and that are it. The brother or his family in return gives a little bit of money, also as a sign of good luck.

Rakhis in a shop

For me it was the first time to see this festival. The students were all very excited about it, especially because they were given nearly 4 days of holidays when most of them went home to stay with their families. This also meant some free days for me which I used to see some places and do some writing. On 24th, Rakshabandan, itself I first stayed at the school where some students from another school had arrived and have the Rakis (bracelets) and some sweets to all students. Because I happened to be there I also had to tie the Rakis around some boys’ arms and give sweets to them. Afterwards I was also given 5 Rakis. For the girls from the other school was it like an honour to do that. In the area of the schools are hardly ever people from abroad that don’t have an Indian background and do thus look at least a little bit Indian. Thus I’m always special and interesting for them.

After the short program in school I went to a friend’s house and stayed there for some time. Because the proper celebration of Rakshabandan does not take that much time actually we also went to see some other places such as two temples and a fair that was around one of them. For Indians this is always very special, but for me it is sometimes very tiring because it is generally fairly crowded and then the stalls are sometimes right at the side of the road which means that there is on-going traffic, which is always chaotic in India, and hardly any space to walk, not to mention the time for relaxed looking around or shopping. Indians don’t mind that because they are used to it, but for me it will probably always be a bit strange and uncomfortable.

Rakhis - they occur in many different shapes, colours etc... a huge variety is available.