#20: Of Brothers & Sisters
the space between resistance and belonging
Welcome to Homebody Stories! A newsletter offering reflections from an ex-productivity enthucutlet trying to live a more meaningful life, one step at a time.
Picture this: The house is filled with a cacophony of laughter. After all, it's D-day. One that everyone in the family has been waiting for. My relatives crowd around the tiny bundle, their faces glowing with that peculiar magic that only new life brings.
Then comes THAT moment. When I'm asked by my family to hold my newly born baby brother. I refuse. The room falls silent. As a four-year-old, I have my solid reasons. For the past four years I've been my family's sole source of entertainment, the star of the family, the recipient of every kiss and cuddle. But now, all eyes are on him. It's ALL ABOUT HIM.
There's a running joke in my family, marked by photographic evidence that tells it better than words ever could. There's a clear before-and-after in my family albums: Pre-Brother and Post-Brother. In every Pre-Brother photo, I'm beaming at the camera, all smiles. But flip the page to Post-Brother, and you'll find a different child entirely, turning every family photo into what looks like a hostage situation. I'm not kidding. See, take a look at it yourself.
The other day on a phone call with my brother, I found myself telling him to prioritize himself, to care for his own needs because he's always the first one to ignore them over the needs of others. And he's been this way since he was little.
As kids, I remember those quiet nights when the world would collapse into the soft space between my grandmother's arms. We'd lie on either side of her, my brother and I, and wait for her to start telling her stories. They would take us into a different world. But we had a ritual of always beginning with the sacred words of the Mūl Mantar.
"Ik onkar, satnam," my grandmother’s voice would float, gentle yet powerful.
And we would race, almost tumbling over each other to complete the final words: "Hai bhi sach naanak hosi bhi sach." We'd rush through those last syllables, our voices competing, desperate to be the first to finish so our grandmother could begin her story.
I had a favourite one: The Woodcutter and the Golden Axe. A tale I annoyingly demanded every single night. My brother, patient beyond his years, would first protest a little but then he'd quickly melt into surrender. Because that's who he was. Always giving. Always putting others before himself.
Siblinghood isn't chosen. It's a raw, messy love story.
Nobody asked me if I wanted to be an elder sibling. The responsibility was, well, just dumped on my tiny shoulders. After school and a long afternoon of completing homework, every time I wanted to step outside to play with my friends, I'd hear the words: "Niraj ko bhi saath lekar jao." The very words that sliced through my dreams of carefree play, forcing me to drag my little brother along when all I wanted was my own space.
But, it didn't just end there. That moment when they'd command, "Haath pakdo apne chote bhai ka." Another command I'd follow with rolled eyes and a heavy sigh. I'd reluctantly stretch out my hand. My brother's face would light up, a triumphant grin spreading like he'd just won some cosmic lottery. His small hand finding mine with absolute trust. The kind of trust I didn't yet know I would come to treasure more than anything.
When did everything change? When did this reluctance transform into an inexplicable, fierce love?
I remember one December afternoon in the early 2000s in Ahmedabad. Uttarayan was different then - a festival that began whispering its magic weeks before the actual day. Kites would dot the sky as early as December, terraces alive with the rhythmic calls of “kai po che.”
And we were up there, on our building's terrace, my brother and I. Me with my kite dancing in the winter breeze, him holding my firki (obviously!). Our parents had given us new ones, but I'd squirreled mine away like a precious little thing, saving it for the grand day of Makar Sankranti. I was content using my last year's firki.
Then the manjha ran out.
I still wanted to fly, the sky still called. Without a word, without hesitation, my brother offered me his brand new firki. Just like that. No conditions, no complaints. His small hands ready to offer what I so dearly valued without a second thought.
It's funny how memory works - how that moment of generosity stands frozen in time while just weeks later our world would change completely.
The hospital lights were harsh and unforgiving. The antiseptic smell burned my nostrils as we rushed through sterile corridors. My brother had passed out. Blood sugar in the 50s. Type 2 Diabetes. He was nine.
Nine years old.
The diagnosis struck us like a sudden, merciless wave. No family history. No warning. Just my baby brother, suddenly seeming so much smaller in that huge hospital bed. The same brother whose hand I'd held with reluctance now had tubes snaking around his tiny fingers.
My parents stood frozen in shock. But something inside me shifted, awakened. The annoying little shadow who'd followed me everywhere was now someone I needed to protect. That reluctant hand-holding transformed into a grip I never wanted to let go.
They say love grows slowly, like a garden. But sometimes it floods in all at once, like a dam breaking. That day in the hospital, watching my brother's pale face against white sheets, I understood what it truly means to be an elder sibling.
“The relationships we have with our siblings are the most important ones of our lives...there is a real uniqueness to sibling relationships that people never fully appreciated before," Jeffrey Kluger writes in Salon the year his book The Sibling Effect (2011) was published. "Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people you’ll ever know, who are with you through the entire arc of your life. Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form,” he observes.
The first time I watched Majid Majidi's Children of Heaven, it broke something open inside me. I was 17 or 18, watching Ali run through Tehran's streets, not for glory but for his little sister Zahra. For a pair of shoes. For his sister's smile.
I cried then. I cry every time I watch it still. That scene where Ali is desperately trying to stay in third place in the race because that's what Zahra needed, I saw love in its rawest form. In Ali and Zahra's story, I saw what siblinghood could be - something beautiful, something sacred.
I wanted want that.
I want to be Ali to my brother, all my life.
Not kidding, I have teary eyes reading this. Niraj and I share a similar childhood! 😆🥹 My brother once wanted to exchange me for a boy, bcs cricket kaun khelega?
Ek tera do mera...🤣🤣🤣