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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LinZi:
You’re right. A number of people have now told me about the less common but not-rare giving of rakhis among females. But when I ask, people say that men giving rakhis to women (or boys to girls) is far outside the pale. Were you given a rakhi by other girls or by a guy?
I was given rakhi by a family in a sort of communal way. At the time I was living in Jaipur in a flat. My landlady/host “mother” (more of a landlady really) invited me to a rakhi celebration/birthday party with her family. I can’t remember who actually tied the rakhi on me and my room mate really, but I got the sense it was a sort of communal “relationship” building from the family to us.
Afterwards, us girls went out and painted henna on each others hands… ๐
I guess my point was that while the tradition is rigid (girls tie rakhi on brothers, brothers promise protection) the actual practice (at least in my experience) seems to be much more fluid.
Don’t you people know anything about the glorious Indian tradition? It’s a great day to destroy your foes. “Yes yes, you should tie a rakhi on him. He’s looking forward to it.”
since we’re all sharing, it was always kinda confusing to me as I am a lot older than my brother and always protected him and looked out for him since he was born. And I’ve doled out more money for him than vice verse, since I always had a job and he didn’t. So, I would always tie it on him with the good luck and best wishes he’d get his act together. Then, accept the gift that my mom picked up.
I like the idea of getting away from the brother/sister and really let siblings tie on each other — let the 2 sisters tie rather than grabbing a token brother.
Desinist in #27:
You didn’t write the full story there. It is completely true that some assholes at Mattel thought it was appropriate to make Barbie-users think that math class was tough, but the chip-switch was done deliberately by the Barbie Liberation Organization. The full story is also here at Barbie Liberation’s website. The chip-switched Barbies yelled stuff like “Vengrance is mine!” and “Eat lead, Cobra!”, while the counterpart GI Joes talked about shopping and clothes and weddings. This was a perfect hack: they got the point across about gender stereotypes, no laws were broken and nobody got hurt or killed, but still some wankers were outraged at these “terrorist attacks” on kids.
Raksha Bandhan is a N. Indian holiday, just like Diwali and Holi. In S. India, they don’t celebrate these holidays, typically, especially in the country side. I believe that this holiday is beautiful, by the way. Muslims all over India don’t really observe this “Hindu holiday” as well. Moreover, Muslims never wear kaddas like Sikhs/Hindus or threads around the wrists.
Most of my N. Indian friends are none too happy about this observance and would just as soon get shot down like everyone else (i,e. in a bar accompanied by sounds of female laughter). This is the Indian equivalent of a woman introducing the fact that she has a boyfriend apropos of nothing. Happily we Lemurians reproduce asexually, fewer people get hurt
Someone just posted a news story, Kasab was crestfallen in court that no one would tie a rakhee on him. WTF!?
As someone else mentioned before, the bengali version is celebrated later with tilak, instead of rakhi. However, while marking the tilak on brother’s forehead, sisters usually recite a poem, the gist of it usually means that “with this tilak, the doors of death are closed for my brother” ( รขโฌล Bhaier kapale dilam phonta, Jamer Duare porlo kanta’), so it usually means that the tilak is granting protection to the brother. Since, my sister and I didn’t have a brother, we used to give bhai-phota to our grandfathers (maternal, paternal, and neighboorhood granpas). It was soo endearing, with all the old grandpa traveling from far and wide just to make us happy. I miss them, now that they are all gone.
We also celebrated Rakhi, because it was such a sweet festival (and those rakhis were SO pretty). During Rakhi,my sister and I would tie Rakhi to each other and whichever cousin was around.
Ennis,
What you don’t seem to know about Karwa Chauth is that when the wife does break her fast she is served by her husband a meal that has been prepared by him as well. That’s the tradition. This is followed by lovemaking in the bedroom where wife gets to be on top! Far from being sexist this festival is actually very feminist-friendly.
As a non-hindu South Asian, I think this tradition is actually very beautiful, though I do agree with Ennis that is sexist in a way and promotes gender stereotypes. But if we focus on the sibling bond, we can make the tradition more egalitarian. Since, I don’t have a sister, I wish I could tie a rakhi on my brother’s wrist and he would do it on mine.
Also, in today’s DAWN, there was a really heartening sentence. A Pakistani Hindu girl in Sindh said “Since I don’t have a brother, I tie rakhi on my neighbor, Hassan, who is like a brother to me”. Here we have a case of true inter-faith harmony:)
Prospect Bagh: so the woman can get on top, but only if she loses some weight first?
Sorry it took me so long to respond, it seems I’ve been barred from posting from home for some reason. . .
I wasn’t drawing a correspondence, I was making a parallel argument. You said a tradition would be more beautiful if we homogenized the functions of all the participants. I pointed out that carrying this logic out to its logical end will yield bizarre results. Not everyone regards being different or acknowledging differences as such anxiety inducing things.
Firstly, I don’t subscribe to the naturalistic fallacy. “Natural” is a fuzzy word with no real importance. While Lupus was mostly right in interpreting what I said as there being a “natural” order to things, it is probably better to say there is a “typical” or “conventionally understood” way that things are done and there is no harm in recognizing and celebrating that so long as it isn’t exploited to make grandstanding political statements. (In case you haven’t noticed, I have a knee-jerk negative reaction to grandstanding political statements and presumptions of engaging in social engineering..)
Secondly, culture is every bit as “natural” to human interaction as biology is. Typically we have found it easier to modify our culture to suit our environments since culture can adapt in one generation while biology takes several hundred, but the process of creating traditional, cultural, religious, social, and legal norms is a natural part of being human. Trying to separate the two is senseless. My point is and has always been that life doesn’t become more beautiful by insisting that everyone has to conform to the same standards. Instead of telling a woman that she is free to do anything that a man can we ought to be spreading the message that she is free to be the best women she can be.
What that entails will vary depending on a girls’ innate talents and the culture in which she was raised. Since the large majority of people tend to adopt roles and obligations that are similar and culturally defined, however, there is no harm in having a broadly accepted cultural and traditional standard. That doesn’t mean nothing variant ever happens. It just means that’s not the point of this occasion. Just like having Mother’s day doesn’t mean we have anything against women who choose not be be mothers. Or St. Valentine’s day doesn’t mean we have anything against single people.
scores of desis will be looking at their parents and co-workers in a new light today.
Yes, and my own impression had been that it is a light-hearted reminder that it is Raksha Bandhan day.
Ennis should have chosen the labels ‘Humor’ ‘Humor’ and ‘Only humor’. And locked up Chaitan and Avani in the bunker until they figured out the way to make the labels show up more prominently.
Wow…it’s really shocking to see you use the word “Indians” as a reference term for Native Americans. The term “Indians” used for Native Americans is equally offensive to both Indians, from India, and Native Americans, as it was incorrectly assumed that Native Americans were Indians. This term is extremely antiquated and offensive, and it’s really disappointing to see in a blog that attempts to point out racist offenses against South Asians. How can we condemn ignorant remarks about South Asians/South Asia, when this blog is doing the same thing to Native Americans?
I find it fascinating that these types of offensive terms, including the horrid “Red Indian” term, are commonly used among South Asians, and I really implore Sepiamutiny to start using the proper, inoffensive terms to refer to other racial groups. After all, we are all fighting the same fight against colonialism, and racism in the Western world, and there’s no need to alienate and offend those Native Americans that may be reading this blog as well!
Saira, Hang on… Most people I know who are “Native American” and who work closely with those who would be identified by that term by the US government actually prefer to be called American Indian. (It is generally agreed upon that “Red Indian” is offensive, as you point out.) Interestingly enough, some people actually have a bigger problem with the term “Native American”. Once in the mountains of Montana, I checked into a hotel where a lovely Blackfoot receptionist took down my information and announced, “You and me, we have something in common.” I looked at her, probably a little confused.
“We’re both Indians.”– at which point, both of us cracked up.
indian is right, and saira goes too far. i had a friend who was an ‘activist’ who went to some grand multicult conference, and talking to an activist of indigenous american heritage ( ๐ he used the term ‘native american,’ and was told by this individual that most ‘indians’ preferred ‘indian.’ ok, so later he talked to another indigenous american activist, used the term ‘american indian,’ and was told it was offensive. so, it being a multiculturalist event he just avoided using any reference to the indigenous americans for the rest of the conference since it wasn’t as if it people were wearing stickers on what term they preferred….
i’ve been at coffee shops where a bunch of kids from a local tribe were chillin’, and they freely used the world ‘indian.’ for american indians the term indian seems to be similar to the word ‘black’ for african americans commonly used in interpersonal discussion but less common in academic discourse
Saira:
The Smithsonian museum on the mall is called “The Museum of the American Indian” and it’s a fairly new museum. It’s not an offensive term.
This is very amusing. I wonder if they were playing a practical joke. We should send some asians equipped with a hidden camera to a modern language association conference and have the say they prefer “oriental.”
well i guess its really not offensive. still, i feel the native americans are wrong. they should be offended. who are they not to be offended after all the scholarship done on orientalism? But how do i convince them to take offense? this is really problematic.
More for Saira from Wikipedia:
You are correct to note that “Red Indian” is considered offensive, as is Injun. However, American Indian, Indian and Native American are all roughly acceptable. Each has detractors but the pendulum seems to be swinging away from Native American these days.
While you are free to soapbox and take umbrage, please check your facts before taking umbrage. After all, I didn’t send out any rakhis this year, so I have no one to protect me ๐
still, “American Indian” is certainly antiquated. Shouldn’t it be “American south Asian”?
Amerikkkan Indian?
“Native Umrican” is a good compromise of sorts.
I think it is racist for us to be offended by the term Indian just because Native Americans were once called that.
Institutions like the veil/hijab bring out a discourse of individual choice, cultural freedoms etc.
The relatively innocent rakhi gets deconstructed with sharp intellectual scissors.
Liberal values need protection from liberals.
“Indian” vs “Native American”: racist or unPC or not, I find “Native American” to be much less ambiguous than “Indian”.
Frankly though, I do get tetchy — as an Indian born in India, why should I have to redefine my terminology just because some Genoese/Catalonian/Portuguese/Spanish guy went on a loony tunes venture 500 years back and ended up in the wrong place?
My motivation therefore is not so much about causing offense to other groups as to preclude having to take offense myself.
because logic doesnt trump faith or tradition. next question.
Thanks McQuade!
It is very telling that this Ennis imbecile conflates Native Americans with India Indians like an ignorant westerner at the same time that s/he launches an ignorant western-style attack on Indian culture. I won’t be reading this blog again.
Just because the term “Native Indian” is used legally and in museums to define Native Americans doesn’t mean it isn’t offensive. I am from Canada and I know that here, the term Indian is considered VERY offensive to First Nations people in Canada, even though the Canadian government has an official ministry called the Ministry of Indian affairs.
You may know some indigenious people who are ok with being termed Indian, but there are plenty of others who find it offensive. The reason that Indians, from India, should also find the term offensive is not because it is refering to Native Americans, but rather because the term is being misused. The Europeans couldn’t tell the difference between Indians from India, and the indigenous people of North America, and hence termed that as “Indians.” It is very disappointing for me to see Sepia Mutiny supporting the usage of a term that is KNOWN for being offensive.
Well there is your problem. Offensive words are only offensive because of the history associated with them. Not because the syllables have some innate magic power to offend. What is offensive in one cultural context would not be in another.
For example, if someone were to bring a six-pack of Molson to my house I would never invite them over again. But I understand such a thing is commonplace in your strange and exotic country.
I agree with Saira. Just because Native Americans don’t find the term offensive doesn’t mean its not. If a tree falls in the forrest and no one hears it, does it mean it made no sound. Hell no. Because the Canadians heard it, or at least they know it made a sound based on a-priori knowledge. Canadians are experts on what is offensive; they’re a very highly advanced civilization, as evidenced by their sophisticated language: Kannada.
Saira:
The Museum of the American Indian was a cooperative effort with various American indigenous groups. It could not have been named such without their cooperation. There have been no protests or boycotts.
I also gave you examples of activists who reject Native American and prefer to be called Indian. You can insist that the term is offensive, but right now, in the US, both terms seem to be equally acceptable, and Native American is seen as just as problematic. Things may be different in Canada, but there’s no term like First Nations here that has gained widespread currency.
Manju: Bravo!
this sort of moral relativism a slippery slope, yoga. if everythngs relative than there is no truth and then you have nihilism which leads to the anarchy the joker inflicted on gotham city which then descends further into socialism, or medicare, whichever comes first.
@Saira et al, did you read any of the links I posted in my earlier comment? Ennis is telling the truth when he says that most people are moving away from the term “Native American.” And when he means people, he doesn’t mean the white government. I work with people who work with “Native American” communities every day, and they’re less likely to use that term than “American Indian”. When I have met people from these communities and asked them about it, they say “American Indian” is not offensive to them. The National Museum of the American Indian is not a place that the white man has made to stereotype the “red Indian” but an educational center involving serious research and engagement with the communities involved.
Accusing Ennis of ignorance and racism doesn’t make sense to me. He made a joke. And I gave an example where the same joke was made from the other side. There is a long history of identification with the terms “Indian” and “American Indian”, a history many people aren’t ready to give up in the United States. Whether or not you find it offensive to your own sensibilities is another question, and you’re of course welcome to your own opinion.
But in all seriousnes, and in Saira’s defense, I was frankly genuinely gobsmaked to learn American Indians don’t find the term offensive. If any term smacks of orientalism and “they all look alike” racism this one is it. I’ve long rattled the hyper-sensitive here by waiving homemade polls, but if any term qualifies for my “vanguard intellectual” loophole, this one is it.
This just proves that there are insensitive people on both sides.
The DC one has an awesome cafe. You should try the chocolate churros and the Indian Pudding they list on their menu. Simply fantastic. And here I thought they were only good at the casino thing.
What?! No Jalebis. This is how they repay us?
Worse. They give us Indian “pudding” and take credit for our kheer. There should be a name for people who give like that.
i guess you heard that blue moon, the “belgian” ale enjoyed by sgt crowley at the vite house is brewed by molson. yu left ving nut you.
guju
and they had the gall to name it rakhi road
I’m with you Yoga…anything less than a case and i also sever the realtionship
Ellora@77, well said…..
seriously? you’re arguing over what to call american indians? isn’t this one of those things that wikipedia can resolve in less than 10 seconds? or you could read a book…
anyway, to g back to the original topic, i am aware that ashish nandi has written a text of girindhra something bose who founded the indian psychoanalitic association and whatnot. Does anyone know of any other works or theorising on rakshabandh, indigenous psychoanalytica interpretatiohns, etc.? It would be possible but I would be skeptical if the Oedipus complex was as relevant for Bengali Hindus (and possibly all Bengalis) as the effects of Goddess worship, but I don’t actually know. Which is why I inquire here from you all.
best, dr a
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.
Only the insane can think that way… please… for most people it’s just an excuse to be happy and have fun, some pocket money for the sister… reading too much into this is futile. Jeez…