Happy Raksha Bandhan to those of you who celebrate it, from one who does not. Our family tried to introduce the custom once, when my sister was three, and there are some great photos of her crying and desperately holding on to the rakhi for dear life. There was no way she was going to give the sparkly object and mithai to her brother in return for a promise, merely oral, not even signed and notarized. 
I imagine she also thought “I’ll fork over the tinsel you promise to protect me from you, you big bully! You got to stop bossing me around if you want the sweets. You’re not even big enough to protect me from anybody else, that’s mom and dad’s job.” And so the tradition never took hold.
When I got older, and my offer of protection was more credible, I realized that my sisters-at-large would be likely to take offense at my mafia-like offer of protection in return for tribute. After all, these were not simpering ladies, these were girls and women more than capable of kicking my kundi. If one of these women were ever to need protection, the best course would be to buy them a firearm and some range time and get out of their way.
The holiday also came across as both sexist and unfair. Why can’t I be weak and helpless and trade a trinket in return for protection? It seems like men are getting the worst deal since Indians sold Manhattan for a bunch of beads.
So why does the holiday continue? My best guess is that it provides a neat social excuse for girls to politely defect male attention without anybody having to lose face. Now a woman no longer needs to say “I like you, but I don’t like you like you”, she can smile and let India’s version of Hallmark do the talking. After all, we don’t feel sorry for the guy walking around looking like an escapee from a Kabbalah party with 30 rakhis on his arm because he has so many women to protect, we feel sorry for him because he’s just been castrated as surely as if these women had used the scissors which snip-snip-snipped the thread.
So until rakhis start to fly equally in both directions, I leave you with this parting thought:
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As a native West Virginian, I love it when women tie rakhis on me!
It’s all about sisters who are some sharp son of a guns who end up making a nifty chunk on change at the end of the day. 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhasiWXqywI
Happy Raksha bandhan. TREATS!!!
Sometimes rakhis fly in unexpected directions. RSS all-men rakshabandhan is an interesting twist on the tradition.
lol @ this
“There was no way she was going to give the sparkly object and mithai to her brother in return for a promise, merely oral, not even signed and notarized.”
In my house, there was an opposite effect to. My parents would give me a 20 dollar note and say give this to your sister, after she ties the rakhi around your wrist.
My response “I get this girly looking bracelet thing and she gets 20 bucks? What part of the game is that?”
Native American, please! Identity-munging terminology on this of all websites. Sho! What is the world coming to?
Is it just me or is there just a hint of “wow, this is some weird primitive thing, I dont surely dont have anything to do with it” in your post?
in my inter-faith and multi-national family, rakhi is a symbol of affection and we all share and tie them on each other without regard to gender. This is also the general direction that its taken in india – a symbol of platonic affection between between men and women – woh to hamari rakhi behen hain – and sometimes between people of the same gender.
I think if you look more closely at the foundations of Halloween – with its connection to witchcraft and head hunting – or at Valentines day – based on christian martyrdom – you might have a similar reaction. But those strange histories are mostly forgotten in modern times.
And I suspect that is going to be the case for raakki and Kaarva Chauth – with the latter re-interpreted as a festival of marital commitment.
In our Bengali family, we do this later, usually in the fall. It’s actually one of the few traditions that I don’t mind doing. After all, there is nothing equivalent in brother-brother relationships, or sister-sister relationships.
“Indian” is the official legal term, fwiw.
We never really did the raakhi thing in our household, because it was more of a Northern tradition, and we were South Indian. (Yes, we are like that only, mind it!)
But there were similar sorts of practices, and I always thought my older brother got a raw deal. He gave me money, and all I had to do was pray for his well-being once a year. Piece of cake.
KXB
you are referencing bhai phota, which usually follows or preceeds diwali
My wife and her sister have no other siblings and have a raft of cousins they exchanged gifts with whenever they meet.
There used to be a time while in Desh, when I used to be the proud guy with 30 Rakhis on my forearm. Now, the infection control policies of the NHS mean that I cannot even go around with the 2 or 3 discreet threads that do make it across the continents. I love the sentiments behind Rakshabandhan, and being close to my little sister, almost a 3rd parent, I specially like a formal celebration of the ties that bind. My favourite Rakhi moment this year however, was when my only ‘Rakhi sister’, my best friend’s wife, went out of her way to send a hand made Rakhi, and managed to get it delivered to me the day I was shifting to a new job in a new city. I reached there, stressed and lonely, unloading my packed worldly possessions, and saw a neat packet with a Rakhi, some rice, teeka and a sachet of Tetley sugar waiting for me. It put a broad smile on my face.
This is the weirdest thing I have heard about this beautiful festival! This is nothing but a celebration/strenthening of the brother sister relationship and to look at it from a gender inequality argument seems ridiculous to me.
Now now Ennis, be a sport and send some money or sweets to all your sisters. In Gujarat we have the day after Hindu new year – called Bhai Beej. This is when the sister reciprocates and invites brother to have dinner at her place – of course with permission from her husband;-) This event is Raksha Bandhan – in reverse. So let’s not be cheap and shrug from our promise to our sisters that we will be there – just in case she needs us… OK.
Btw, Jyotsana, I never realised that you were a dude. You come across as a very knowledgeable person. I enjoy reading your comments.
I agree with sunshine.This is the most weird post I ever read about Rakhi too. Sometimes for people growing up out of India if their own nucleus family does not do something then since they find nothing happening outside in the American world they might miss the whole significance.In India their mama (mother’s brother) might have come over or they might have gone over to their maasi’s place ( Father’s sister) and if you step out of your home that day you cannot miss the festival with every male wrist festooned with Rakhis. Instead of the ‘lots of rakhi on hand’ example given by the writer ( Though true for school boys 🙂 They dread this day for those reasons ! ) those who have no rakhis to show on this day are usually glum about it .I know am missing tying a rakhi personally on my brother’s hand today. Festivals get reinterpreted all the time . My two daughters tied rakhi to each other yesterday night.
Yo Dad – I’m happy to send them all sweets and money, that’s not the problem. I’d just like them to wear a Rakhi and promise me that they’ll protect me too 🙂 I mean, my sisters are pretty tough women!
Al Beruni – have you ever heard of a guy fasting on Kaarva Chauth?
Sunshine – if it’s so beautiful, wouldn’t it be twice as beautiful if it was egalitarian?
Monika – while festivals get reinterpreted all the time, have you ever seen a woman in India walking around with a wrist full of 30 rakhis? I suspect the traditional form is still pretty dominant. The only people I know doing the egalitarian version are … ABDs who grew up outside of India and who see the holiday differently from the traditional form.
See, if I had tied rakhi on some of my sisters, they’d be here to protect me from … this criticism 🙂
Ennis, equal =/= identical. You can have an egalitarian view about the worth of each gender without necessarily insisting that those genders are the same in every way.
In fact, the latter view would be kind of silly. Most prior (and sensible) forms of feminism didn’t insist on saying that “women and men ought to be exactly the same,” they focused on getting an acknowledgement from society that women added value to society beyond the merely ornamental and cosmetic (and this later expanded to encompass roles beyond housework.)
Take the counterfactual. What kind of society will you be living in when you don’t consistently reinforce the idea that brothers have an obligation to look after their sisters? Keep in mind, we don’t live in Rawlsian veil of ignorance la-la-land here. We live in the real world where there actually are gender disparities.
@Yoga Fire: Your response is revealing. Can I infer from it that you believe that men and women are not equally capable of being protectors? That one gender is better suited to that role, and the other to being protected?
Note that I didn’t call for a world where brothers ignored their sisters, just for a separation of protection from gender. As I said to Sunshine, if this holiday is so beautiful, then wont it be twice as beautiful when men and women can play both protector and protected?
take your roleplay ideas to that dirty craigslist.
“I suspect the traditional form is still pretty dominant.”
Traditionally, the only way people heard about what is going on each others life was by physically meeting with each other. So, you can also interpret traditional form of Rakhi as an occasion to talk\meet\catch up your sister. I guess you get taught about all this “brother suppose to protect sister” thing at some point but that is not how most people I think about it. Reason: Sisters who are not able to tie Rakhi probably do not miss Rakhi because they worry that brother won’t protect them anymore.
Anyway, you are mixing things up .. what has Rakhi got to do with female-male equality?
I have some really nice memories attached with Rakhi. This is the day when all my moms brother will come over to our house, along with cousins and we will have a great time toghether. Now I am here in LA and my sis is in a different city and life has taken us into our own busy directions. But this day provides us a chance to renew the bond and celebrate it, and I absolutely love it when I find the rakhi in the mail.
I am sorry but I find you take on it kinda weird, and not even that funny.
I meant “mom’s brothers”. My dad is not such a stud 😉
I am no ABD, but DBD. Growing up we too made the usual protests/arguments about the sexism in this festival ( and in all the others too Diwali,Karwa Chauth just name it and I can present those 🙂 We were invited to interpret it as we wanted. . So we settled for this – while I would tie the Rakhi on my brother ,we both would get the moolah from our parents .Never really bothered much about the protection aspect.( That’s just the origins of the festival ..dates back to Rani Padmini times and older ) Our focus was more on the Cadbury chocolates ! What riled me while reading the post is the wondering on the ‘why’ of the festival and its reason. Rakhi is much more than that.It’s a lovely festival which connects brothers and sisters year after year specially as adults when they move away and get absorbed in their own families.
Happy Rakhri
I miss this festival. I remember my mom’s excitement as she prepared to visit her mom’s home for Rakhi – home cooking and everything. I do not have a sister so whenever we lived away from our extended family this day (especially the evenings) use to be pretty joyless. We are two brothers and even amongst cousins (12 of us) we had ‘just’ 2 girls. These girls accumulated quite a bit of dough on Rakhi day.
These days people send each other Rakhi cards and oraganize Rakhi Parties with DJs and all that. I am not sure it is that much fun.
Upbhransh: I will get Rakhi in mail – these days one of my ‘cousin-sisters’ is in US so I will get ‘Kaju Barfi’ too. 🙂 -it is not the same though tying rakhi with one hand is not fun.
Aren’t any of you concerned about the messages you’re sending your daughters?
People tell me that Karwa Chauth is a wonderful celebration of “marital commitment” but in the end, it’s the woman who goes hungry to ensure the man’s health and not vice versa. It doesn’t show that “spouses” should sacrifice for each other, it shows that the role of the woman is to sacrifice for her husband, but the husband has no reciprocal obligation to sacrifice for his wife at all.
Similarly, rakhi isn’t about siblings and friends promising to protect each other, it’s about brothers protecting sisters, males being told their role is protector and females being told their role is to be passively protected. When gender roles are one way, you’re not just sending a message of obligation to the males, you’re sending a message of passivity to the females.
Think about a 15 yr old girl tying a rakhi on her 4 yr old brother, and being told by her grandfather that this means her 4 year old brother will “protect her” now simply by virtue of being the male. Even though the girl is both older and bigger, and the boy is not able to cross the street on his own, she’s the helpless one to be protected and he’s the strong able warrior to protect her.
This reminds me of the time when the voice boxes got crossed between GI Joe and Barbie. The barbie doll said “Math is Hard!” and if anybody had criticized that they would have been called shrill. Defenders would have said that math is hard, and Barbie was merely being sympathetic and encouraging. But when GI Joe started to say “Math is hard!” nobody made that excuse, everybody would see how wrong it sounded coming from a man, and therefore how Barbie was sending messages of helplessness.
Aren’t there ways for siblings to celebrate their bonds without reinforcing pernicious gender stereotypes of female helplessness? Are rakhis so ugly that no woman wants to be seen wearing one? Does it make a woman any less feminine to be seen as a protector?
Like I said, when dealing in the real world we have to recognize the fact that the average man is more physically imposing than the average woman, men are generally expected to be bread-winners and operate in the outside world, and that women are more frequently targets of abuse. I don’t believe anyone has yet coined the term “adam teasing.”
I have yet to hear a lady protest when I hold a door for her. In the real world it is blatantly obvious which gender is expected to brave dangers on behalf of the other. I don’t believe I have ever once heard a woman complain about how unegalitarian I am when I offer to walk her home at night.
There were obviously sound reasons for norms having evolved this way. Generally the feminist critique assumes that these are all the work of a patriarchy conspiring to cement their position on top and keep the womenfolk down. The anthropological perspective holds that women are, in fact, just plain more valuable to society than men are. The ability to have children and the fact that mothers tend to develop stronger bonds with their children than fathers do means the long-term viability of your civilization (both in terms of demography and intergenerational transmission of culture) hinges more heavily on keeping women safe. Safety is confining and that sucks. Modern technology and state capacity ensures that many of those issues are no longer as big of a concern, so we don’t have to cloister women as much. But there is no real reason that we should just pretend the underlying realities that we developed the technology to circumvent should be forgotten.
But the main thing you’re missing is that overarching cultural norms are not about the individual. They are about doing what is best for and ensure the continued thriving of the whole community. On an individual basis some people on the edges of the bell curve might not be able to fit the mold. The nice thing about flexible cultural traditions is that the fringes can modify the traditions to meet their own needs without having to piss in everyone else’s cheerios. As long as those modifications are done with the purpose of participating rather that subvert them to make grandstanding theatrical statements nobody but the wingnuts get especially angry about it.
If motherhood is so beautiful, wouldn’t it be twice a beautiful when both men and women could breast feed?
Let’s get working on that prolactation pill to make the world just a bit more beautiful and homogenous. Notice the use of the term “homogenous.” When you not only assume, but insist on an assumption of variegated groups being identical what you’re doing is imposing conformity, not egalitarianism.
I appreciate this post, and the different perspective. But Rakhi is at its base celebrating the bond between a brother and a sister, and the Rakhi offers protection from evil to the brother, while he offers protection to the sister. I think your criticism is misplaced: the sexism lies in two things: a) the sister needs a piece of thread to protect her brother, thus needs to rely on the Gods, while the brother protects her himself b) the way that society has evolved these days, gender roles have become a lot more defined; when the tradition originally started, sisters had an equal role in protecting their brothers when they went off to war, while their brother’s protection helped them hold the fort (literally?) while they were at war. Personally, I think it is a beautiful tradition that emphasizes the role of family, and shows that women do not need their husbands to protect them (rather, during Karvachauth, they pray for their husbands to be safe). But I can see the potential criticisms. As a feminist, I am usually aware of traditions steeped in patriarchy, and I usually send Rakhis to my sisters to celebrate sisterhood as well 🙂
@desinist: Thank you
@yogafire: So you think asking a sister to protect or provide for her brother is as unnatural as male lactation? Do I have that right? If you have a daughter, you wont teach her to hold the door for whoever is coming next? That’s the traditional norm, right? Man opens the door, woman walks through it. She opens it herself if she has to, but she never holds it open for anybody else.
You’re suggesting that I’ll cause the end of chivalry. I think chivalry goes much deeper in a world where (like today) both men and women hold doors open for each other, depending on who came first.
Ennis, of course women can be protectors as competently as men under most circumstances. However, I feel that Yoga Fire was correct in his premise that there is a natural scheme of things, and nature itself has endowed the genders with different temperaments and abilities. The value of these can be equalised but it would be unwise to pretend that men and women are qualitatively the same. An average male is physically stronger and temperamentally more aggressive, qualities traditionally suited to the role of a protector, while an average woman is more caring and sensitive, traditionally more suited for the role of the nurturer. Nothing unequal about it, just natural difference. If someone can rise beyond the natural order of things, more power to them. I myself have survived many a highs-chool scraps by invoking my older female cousin, a school sports captain and a cricket player extraordinaire.
Ennis – I do personally know several couples where both parties fast on karva chauth.
Indic traditions are evolving and changing. Your comments indicate ignorance of these changes.
As I said before, there is a hint of superiority in your comments, the great liberal thinker kindly tolerating weird traditions of the hindooos (in the original sense of hindu). But at the same time, I am sure you are full of enthusiasm for Halloween and Valentines day, each of which has its own peculiar history with some quite astonishing facets.
One story I have read is that Rakri actually began in Ancient Punjab when Puna ( Porus)’s wife begged Sikander ( Alexander)not to kill Porus. She tied a string around Sikander’s wrist and asked him to be her brother and protector..not sure how true this is, but more likley than the myths I think
I would would mostly agree with that except the “great liberal” and “thinker” part.
@Al Beruni – you’re presuming a lot. You don’t know me, and your inferences about my thinking and behavior are incorrect. They’re also not useful – why not keep the discussion on what I’m saying rather than what you think I’m feeling and believing?
As for changes, I think the other comments here show that change, if it’s happening, is both gradual and not widespread. After all, Yogafire suggests that having a sister play the role of protector is as unnatural as male lactation.
Have you ever seen a man giving rakhis to a woman? That would be the hard case for change. I’ve heard of men giving them to each other (the RSS) and women sometimes giving them to each other, but never a man giving to a woman. And I’ve been asking. If it happens, it seems to be pretty rare.
Since I’ve posted this somebody emailed me to say they know several couples where both fast during karwa chauth, and I think that’s beautiful, but in all the cases I know — in the US, India, and other countries — it’s only the woman. In India I got laughed at for asking about men fasting, it seemed absurd to the people I was with.
I agree with ennis on comment 35 ,
Yes in general change is gradual and not widespread where gender equality in festivities are concerned . In many places trying to change that in small ways will lead to strict anti responses from some traditional elders and since most festivals are extended family affairs , these elders are to be found willy nilly. I recall a family where the number of sweets in the pooja plate would be based on the number of males of the family attending that pooja. Even questioning that was not allowed.Definitely would off putting to attend such a pooja, but festivals are not always ruined everywhere by such practices. and Rakhi is generally not one of the rigid ones
and as for Karwa Chauth – both couples fasting is quite rapidly coming in fashion nowadays at least in Indian metros So much so that in my circle of friends ( Many in India and many here) the guy not fasting would be the one squirming in a meetup of friends! 🙂 Since his wife will not take kindly to his not fasting for her longer life . I guess the movies are responsible for that for eg Think DDLJ
I think mixing Karva-Chauth with Rakshabandhan is a mistake. I know you are hinting at the common aspect of supposed male-superiority behind the two, but they are really very different in their roots and symbolism
I think what he wanted to highlight was lactation as a powerful reminder of the natural role of the genders. We can go to absurd lengths to homogenise the role of sexes in society. We can even think of false, confounding factors (“maths is hard”), but in the end, we are a bipedal mammalian organism. We can’t hide from that naked truth.
This is such a sweet post. I am surprised that people are criticizing you for throwing light on the inherent sexism of the festival. Its so refreshing to see a man question the norms. Hope you won’t let the criticism affect your attitude.
@Lupus:
Al Beruni linked Rakhsa Bandan and Karwa Chauth in comment 6. I didn’t bring it up originally, but they are similar in that the traditional form of behavior is one sided and I’m suggesting that in both cases the symbolism is enhanced, not reduced, by making it two-sided, and removing the element of female passivity from the equation.
And yes, gender exists, but the question is to what extent does it define social roles? Shall we exclude women from the military as inherently unfit? Or view female soldiers as freaks and stigmatize them for going against nature? How about hard charging female executives working in traditionally male spaces, such as litigators or bond traders?
This post on Rakhi would be of course adhoori (incomplete) without adding a link to the one and only rakhi song ..here…and here’s the original 🙂
exactly. you don’t know yogafire too, and your inferences about his thinking and behavior are incorrect. they are also not useful—why not keep the discussion on what he says rather than how you can twist words around? you find sexism in what he is saying because you are looking for it—very few others here would think he is saying women being protective is like males lactating.
i am very fond of some of my (women) friends, and rakhi is one way to express it. i look to them for a lot of advice as well—to “thank” them/request them for it by tying a rakhi would, to put it simply, be amusing to them. the same symbolic gesture have different depths of meaning to different genders.
but if you do want to tie a rakhi to a female friend, who is stopping you? just don’t do it only once.
on this topic, the guy ties the mangalya on the woman’s neck during marriage. the hymn chanted during that is “the thread i tie symbolizes my life, live long and prosper” (ok the second part is just “live for 100 autumns”). i thought the “enlightened” reaction to that was that this ceremony was sexist too—only the guy ties the mangalya—even if he is the one who is asking the woman to be in charge of his well-being?
you can have it only one way. which one is it? the rakhi or the mangalya?
i agree with al—there is a hint of superiority here. you “know” indians are sexist, so you look for it in everything they do. if you assumed the west were sexist, you could find sexism in everything the west does as well. everything appears yellow to the jaundiced eye.
Plus the first rakhi was tied by a wife on a husband ( The God Yum’s wife ( God of Death ) on his hand to protect him ) ( Think Harry Potter’s mum’s kiss) Then later along the way came a smart queen sending rakhi to ask for protection and we have the current form. So really just get along with it 🙂 celebrate if you like it , change it if you don’t but the main crux of rakhi ..siblings celebrating together ..is a lovely concept and not found easily in other cultures.
@bytewords:
I said to Yoga Fire:
And Yoga Fire responded:
His words are directly drawing a correspondence, talking about the ways in which nature shapes gender roles. I asked him in my reply if he thought that men nursing and women protecting were equally unnatural. I’m not presuming anything about whether he thinks he’s superior or not, I’m just asking for a clarification of his statement.
That’s very different from people assuming what I do on Valentines Day or Halloween, or claiming they know I’m feeling superior about rakhri. I’m questioning the tradition, there’s no reason to claim I’m getting uppity in response. We have a rule about keeping discussions non-personal and focussed on the words, not the people.
As for mangalya, that’s outside of my cultural reference. While some Sikhs do celebrate rakhri for cultural reasons (half my family does the other half does not), there is no mangal sutra at a Sikh wedding. That said, no personally I wouldn’t be comfortable with that.
I am perpetually astounded by the extent of liberal re-education present on these forums. Men are in most cases far better suited to be protectors than women. There are a few women who defy this, yes, but by and large it is true. A bunch of leftists arguing that men and women are the same is completely mind-boggling. Men are better at some things, women at others. Just facts.
This whole gender argument is ridiculous. Its a case of over analyzing and looking for issues when no issue exists!There’s always going to be differences between men and women..men are good at certain things, women are good at others, recognize that, accept that and be happy. Ennis, believe me, you DON’T want to be equal with women in every respect…its not always fun:) P.S: No wonder you filed this post in the humour category…your argument is funny!
I really liked Rakhi the first time. But the whole thing went south by the time that ridiculous thing with that Russian boxer came around.
First, I must confess, I have never heard this song before, but it rocks my socks off.
Secondly, I have only recently experienced Rakhi but I think (mayhaps) that one can make it a bit less sexist by the choices of description… as opposed to “you give your bro a sparkly bracelet and he promises to protect you” you could sort of reword it as just celebrating the bonds of siblings… I have seen little girls have it tied too in India by siblings. People tied it on me (I’m a female, in case the name doesn’t give it away) in a sort of affectionate “thanks for celebrating with us” kind of way as well.
I suppose it all goes to how you want to go about thinking about it. Also, I think I would much rather have money and sweets than a little gaudy bracelet… hehe
Oh.. and I forgot to mention… I particularly ENJOY the ability to tie a rakhi on a boy who is a friend… a nice way to reinforce the “I’m your friend, but don’t try anything” relationship! Great really, I will we tied Rakhi in the U.S. it would really help clear up a lot of confusion in life! 😉
“Men are in most cases far better suited to be protectors than women.”
Men are fair better suited for unprotecting women too (ahem….)
Ennis:
“The only people I know doing the egalitarian version are … ABDs who grew up outside of India and who see the holiday differently from the traditional form.”
The tying of rakhi on me and sisters of the family I was visiting was in India… so I don’t know about everyone, but it was happening at the house I visited!