Winners and losers are more often than not a matter of perspectives. When I was in school we used to have holiday on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. The day before the Rakshabandhan used to be a happening one. The teachers used to give us the last period off, where the girls would get Rakhis and would tie to the guys and we would carry chocolates for them. It used to be a fun filled day, though the last period was specifically for this purpose, but the Rakhi tying would continue the whole day in recess and between periods.
Now there used to be an unsaid race, competition between the boys as who gets more Rakhis. So we used fight for the coveted post plying all sorts of tactics. The girls whom we generally used to make fun of were treated extra nicely just a week before Rakhi (Nicely= Giving Away Sharing our Lunch Boxes). The hints were dropped the kind of chocolates (Amul, Dairy Milk or 5 Star). I even went to customize my chocolate assortment in preference to the choice of individual and keep an estimate of the number of chocolates I would buy aka number of Rakhis. With all the cautious planning and strategizing on the D-day the war got hotter, results were consistently been updated like any live match on arms of the every guy around.
The real time strategizing used to happen when you used to pass the girls who have not tied you Rakhi repeatedly so she remembers that you are left. Beg, borrow and beg more to get more Rakhis, when the prospective sisters exhausted in our own sections the new Rakhi tying prospects were scouted from other sections and a class senior and a class junior to you. Towards the end of it the both the hands had Rakhis all over it like the Banyan tree outside the temple is wrapped in the sacred thread. In all hot & humid weather and hand wrapped in thread which used it itch. Nothing mattered then, I had the most Rakhis on my hand.
Now you get it, making every girl possible around me my sister and I thought I was a winner. I mean people pay cover charges to get into clubs where they can ogle/approach/hit on girls. And I was at a place where the gender ratio was far more balanced than a government engineering college and all I did was to catch hold of every girl in and around my age and made her my sister. Now this is called a perfect Loser, ain’t so people? Well a lot of mistakes are forgiven when you are 10 years old.
It’s been so many years what used to be being Winners is now being a loser. But invariably the day never lost its significance, if anything it gained it further. It’s been almost 10 years since I have stepped out of home and had missed most of the Rakshabandhan. But this can neither stop me from remembering my sisters and feeling good about them nor can it stop me from tying all the Rakhi love they send me every year on my hand.
So this day for the Sisters!!! Happy Rakhi !!!!