Brother-sister duo

I feel sorry for people who do not have any brothers (or well, sisters too)

 Twins - Blackie is a girl and the fawn coloured kitten is a male and they are always together!

No, one knows how we grew up, our favourite food, all our friends and some of their stories, favourite games, the teachers we liked and hated, the ice-cream parlours and the exact flavour of ice cream that we preferred, how we got hurt and what happened when we got stitches for the first time...no one knows them the way a brother or sister does. No one knows exactly how we will react to a certain situation the way siblings do...

But more than that, no one has seen us change in those infinitely small ways...how my taste in ice cream flavour changed, how I liked black and not white anymore, how my hair style changed over years and how he once got a "mithun chakravarty haircut", which is something even he would like to forget...how I liked silver more than gold and then wood and junk more than anything else, how I gained weight, lost it and gained it with little guilt and blaming it all on a set of medicines, how my life changed...

My brother's influence on me has been many fold...from the preference for football (started when I was still in primary school, mostly because I wanted to ape him. He was good at games.) to liking Billy Joel and knowing about Pink Floyd...from painting (which he was really good at) to learning photography (which I totally love and am addicted too) From the choice of books to the choice of movies. From respecting everybody, especially elders, humanity and generosity (which lets face it, I am not! But hey, I try :-D ) ).

I remember one particular incident in school. We had gone for a marriage and I had a paper the very next day. There was no way I could have even thought about passing that exam and so I decided to skip school that day. My parents didn't insist but my brother said that I should atleast try. The courage doesn't lie in going to a battlefield only when you are all prepared, sometimes it also lies in knowing that you might not win but still have the strength to put up a good fight. What is the worst thing that can happen - I'd fail, but that would be the case even if I didn't go to school...in the former, I would have a red mark on my report card and in the latter I would have missed an opportunity. So I went to school, very grudgingly and guess what- I passed! And that sort of changed my perspective a bit...you can't possibly be prepared for every circumstance in life but you've got to face them head on. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose...either way you learn something.

And then there are things that I don't like about him...and I know exactly when and how he picked up those habits.

But most of all you just don't need to communicate with brothers or sisters. They understand. Sometimes, they come up with the same songs...similar thoughts...and you don't even need to look at them to know that. With them, silences don't matter.

So why am I rambling on...simply because it is rakshabandhan today... :-)