Disclaimer: This post has the tendency to sound like a testimonial / super buttering attempt for my bro.
The school bus is zipping along on its way. All the kids are jumping and shouting. As the bus stops at one stop, one of the kids jumps out. He tells his friends to hold the bus till he reaches home. A fierce glare in the bus driver’s directions tells him to do just as he says. He zooms at super speed and reaches home. Racing to the balcony, he waves to his friends and asks them to wait for one more minute. He goes to her baby cot. She’s sleeping….”MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM…she’s sleeping again…why is she always sleeeeeeping?” Undaunted, he picks her up gently and takes her out to the balcony. Showing her off to his friends, he waves her hand to them and finally the bus is free to go on. This is my earliest memory of my bro.
When most kids are not too happy about sharing their parents with a sibling, my bro realized the potential coolness of being the only kid on the block with a baby sibling- especially a sister. This automatically elevated me to baby-icon status. How he loved to flaunt his baby sister in front of all his only-child friends.
As I grew up, the novelty wore off, but the love didn’t. Another fond memory of mine is of the time we were visiting Matheran. I had brand new shoes - the kiddie ones that made those squeaking sounds. I was old enough to walk now so had insisted that I would walk and not be carried around. But after walking a few steps, I noticed that that the red dust was spoiling my new shoes. So I promptly did the most logical thing in this situation. I started howling at full volume. My dad and bro rushed to my rescue and managed to find out the reason for my impromptu tantrum. With a smile, my dad brushed off the dust and hoisted me onto his shoulders. But my howling continued. Why u ask? Didn’t I say I wanted to WALK? For those of you who have heard a toddler crying his guts out that too at close range, will know that anything and everything is done to quiet the lil punk down. So my dad promptly put me down. I shut up, blinked and confirmed that my feet were on the ground AND that my shoes were clean again. And off I marched again. Five feet later, we were back to square one – me with dusty shoes and howling again. The shoes were re-cleaned and the walking re-resumed. This cycle continued 2-3 more times. Then my dad exhausted his patience limit and hoisted me on his shoulders without further ado. Having become sufficiently immune to my dramatic sobs, he managed to ignore them successfully. But my bro couldn’t. So he took over from Dad. And he brushed and shushed me every five minutes for the rest of our walk that day - without complaint. Whenever I’m exceptionally mad at him for something, I remember this incident and cannot love him more.
Of course, we had our fair share of fights and squabbles. We invented and perfected a method of bashing each other without leaving a bruise mark. But then one day, my bro grew up. And the fighting stopped. And that’s when we started to come closer as siblings. He took me swimming with him…I attempted to learn but was too chicken. He took me around on his cycle – to and from school, etc. and he would quietly and non-intrusively ask about school etc. He became my 9 p.m. alarm, when he would poke his floppy-haired hair into my room and remind me that Home Improvement (a TV show) was about to start. We bonded over comedies and legal dramas. And Vicky’s gymco. After being a chubby kid till high school, he started going to the gym – Vicky’s Gymco. After a couple of weeks, we noticed that he had started lifting everything around the house in a bid to flex his biceps/triceps/quadriceps. His fav seemed to be the chairs….so whenever a chair was not where it was supposed to be, it was probably in my bro’s iron grip. The cycling, swimming and gymming paid off and soon he was flaunting his film-star toned calves in front of me. He used to do a hilarious spoof on Malaika Arora in her MTV style check days…the way she would sit with her legs crossed to give the best view of her sexy legs.
We played different roles in each other’s lives…he was always the older brother and I was his baby sister. But his sense of protectiveness was never suffocating. He gave me enough freedom to do my thing but would not hesitate to reprimand me if I messed up. He was my milestone in everything from studies to responsibilities…my minimum targets always ended up being bro’s achievement + 1. My first set of play friends were his friends…. His choices influenced mine…not coz they were enforced but coz they were good choices. We had a gap of 5 years between us but it was always a positive thing coz by the time I reached where he had been, he was able to give me the low-downs on how tackle that phase of life. His constant desire for perfection would drive me mad sometimes (he made me edit a testimonial twice before finally accepting it)…but it seeped into me too and now I’m just as demanding when I see that potential in the opposite person.
We aren’t exactly your typical filmy siblings who are the best of friends. But we do have a deep bond that surpasses everything. Our roots and our history have shaped us into the people we are today. Even today when we live such different life styles, our basic values still remain the same. Today, he’s my mentor, my guide, my inspiration, my investment advisor (free for me – discounted charges for my friends) and of my course- my big brother…forever watchful, forever concerned about me, always there to catch me if I fall…but never shadowing my day in the sun. My brother, my hero, my super sibling.
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