Long ago, when physical growth to us, three siblings(me the eldest, a sister in between and a brother standing at the tail of the lineage), meant just the linear one as against the current secondary growth, most of the relatives who visited our house had a tough time in guessing the ascending/descending order of our age. As my sister was almost of my height (! oh yeah, I kind of gave it up early!! :P), folks were confused all the more.When a family visited our house some years ago, a natural question that got asked was who the eldest was. Spontaneously, I said ‘It’s him, my brother’. My parents were the most startled ones, not left too far by the relatives because his height at that time had still kept him eligible to be called the youngest. I had to justify my answer to all those pairs of eyes expressing wonder. If a person’s orders and demands worked, if he could boss around, if he was given all rights of the remote control of the TV whenever he wanted to, rather, if there were a couple of people to support his cause if his rights were denied, if his choice of menu for lunch was taken as order, if not the eldest, what else can he be, I said. A loud burst of laughter from relatives and a mild smile from parents (who must have realized the consequences of forcing me to give away the remote control for the poor ‘younger’ brother) ends the scene.
Not so long ago, the ‘young’ brother who has outgrown most of the tall men in our kith and kin, also called the Big B of our family, confused some people so much that he was considered the big brother, I mean the eldest of all. If marriage proposals start coming his way, what do we assume?
Just recently, we visited our native place to attend a ceremony. A place with extreme influence of rural culture, bearing conservative people, it is. As we all sat in the open field and chatted after the ceremony was over, my brother started pelting stones at my toe. Despite warning and scolding him, he did it relentlessly. Quite irritated with his absurd behavior and to avoid a creation of scene, I walked away from there and later forgot about the incident totally. A couple days later, my brother reminded me of that incident to invite my wrath, and he asked if I knew the reason for why he did that. I expressed my ignorance for which he reasoned out that the problem was that I was sitting with crossed legs and the conservative-rural people consider that snobbish and arrogant. As we were sitting amidst so many people, he found it difficult to express that and assuming that I would change my posture, he did that. Laughing out loud, recollecting that I had walked away, he said it had finally worked!! All the anger I had on him vanished immediately. Although, the body language that got displayed was not intended, he was right in pointing it out. Lessons of manners when came from my younger brother, I realized, he had indeed become a BIG brother, maturity-wise too.
Not so long ago, the ‘young’ brother who has outgrown most of the tall men in our kith and kin, also called the Big B of our family, confused some people so much that he was considered the big brother, I mean the eldest of all. If marriage proposals start coming his way, what do we assume?
Just recently, we visited our native place to attend a ceremony. A place with extreme influence of rural culture, bearing conservative people, it is. As we all sat in the open field and chatted after the ceremony was over, my brother started pelting stones at my toe. Despite warning and scolding him, he did it relentlessly. Quite irritated with his absurd behavior and to avoid a creation of scene, I walked away from there and later forgot about the incident totally. A couple days later, my brother reminded me of that incident to invite my wrath, and he asked if I knew the reason for why he did that. I expressed my ignorance for which he reasoned out that the problem was that I was sitting with crossed legs and the conservative-rural people consider that snobbish and arrogant. As we were sitting amidst so many people, he found it difficult to express that and assuming that I would change my posture, he did that. Laughing out loud, recollecting that I had walked away, he said it had finally worked!! All the anger I had on him vanished immediately. Although, the body language that got displayed was not intended, he was right in pointing it out. Lessons of manners when came from my younger brother, I realized, he had indeed become a BIG brother, maturity-wise too.
But then, the TV-remote-control thing is unfair! I still stand by that :P
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