Happy Birthday, Bhai… :-)
Filed under: Behind the screen..., Down the memory lane..., Family..., uuphh yeh life!!! — chapters @ 12:20 PM
Today is my elder brother’s birthday. I call him “Bhai”. He is around 8 years older to me. Its been around 9 years, when he had left home for his job. And after that he became a kind of guest in our house… coming once or twice in a year to home, that too for just a couple of days each time. Today, if I calculate where we are standing as a brother and sister, then sadly, I would say that we are just having a formal relationship. He no more interferes in my life nor do I interfere in his life.
Well, we have a regular communication, through phone calls, mails and online chatting. But, some times I feel as if we are aliens to each other. There was a time, when we used to fight like dog n cat. There was a time when he used to beat me as any elder brother would have in any other house hold. There was a time when I used to complain to my parents against him. And there was a time when, I had saved some money and bought him a pen, though a cheaper one ( Of 6 Rs. only), for his birthday, for the first time after I understood that I should gift him something (He had taken that pen even before his Birthday saying, “Anyways, you are going to give it to me… so why not now??” 
).
He had a mania for pens. I dont know whether he has it till now or not!!! But after he left home, 9 years ago, then some of his things came to my possession. And one of those things was, an Aluminum Box, which he used to carry his books and notes in to school long ago, full of different types of pens starting from the use-n-throw types to Gel pens. He also had a collection of fountain pens… and i loved them… I still carry a fountain pen, a mitsubishi one, with me, which he used to use during his 11th or 12th. I used the pen thorugh out my engineering career for writing lab notes, though I dont use it any more. But I did not forget to bring it with me the time I left home for my job, because, somehow, till I feel connected to the nostalgia thorugh that pen.
Even today, when I think about giving a gift to bhai, the first thing comes into my mind is, A Pen. I had gifted him few pens as birthday presents till I was a student. Then last year I had given him a Fast Track wrist watch after knowing about a new mania he had acquired, for wrist watches. He got happy and threw his Titan watch at home and put on the new one I had gifted. 
And when comes the subject of the gifts he had given me, then its numerous. starting from dresses to digicam, to ipod, to laptop. Once he had gifted me a remote controlled small toy car, and unfortunately, I had kept it so securely that I am no more able to find it out 
From these gift related topics, I could remember a funny incident that had happened long ago. That was a time when I and bhai, both were in school… It was rakhsha bandhan’s day. That time, my father used to pay for both, the Rakhi I used to buy for bhai and the gift he used to buy for me. So father had given him 50 Rs for my gift. He bought 2 pens of 25 Rs each… Then after I tied the Rakhi on his hand… And he gave me one (???) pen and then he showed me the other pen asking that what would I do with 2 pens of the same category!!! So he kept one and gave me one (i.e. from the amount of 50 Rs to be spend on me, he gulped half…). Then, being a very sweet younger sister ( ) I accepted the proposal without any hesitaion and took the pen he gave to me and showed to my friends. Being very much unaware of the prices and all, I became a laughing stuff when I told the price of the pen. It was actually a 10 Rs worth pen. So he just gulped the rest 40 Rs. :-O
Today, sitting here in office I am missing all those days… how hours became days and how days became months and how months became years and flew away, I could not know. Just got a reply from Bhai, to the mail I had sent to him wishing for his birthday… replied that he would call me in the night.
Gone are the days when I used to be a little school going girl, but bhai thinks me still to be a kid. His daughter is 1 and 1/2 years old and he thinks that I am just couple of years older to his daughter… Well, I wish if I could go back to the days when we were together and could make them better with some more funny incidents, which we would remember and tell them our children as stories.
Hey bhai, Happy Birth Day…
Enjoy your Day
Miss You …
Your, Little sister…
