O Brother!

Ever since I joined Facebook I don’t need to put separate reminders for myself any more because it diligently prompts me about all the appropriate dates. So, unless I am travelling out of the country and my phone is switched off in order to save on the exorbitant roaming charges, I am pretty clued on. About the birthdates, wedding anniversaries and other special occasions of my friends and relatives. 

But like any new technological invention, Facebook also delivers beyond its normal call of duty. Hence, it additionally reminds me of events that I did not even know had existed. Ever! For example, among others, it asks me to celebrate a “niece week”, and a “nephew week”, and a “sisters week” and a “cousins week”. 

I happily ignored these promptings on a regular basis but when it told me to commemorate “brothers week”, I had to suddenly sit up and take notice. 

 “If you have a brother that you love a lot, who made you cry sometimes, pulled your hair, fought with you, stood up for you, drove you crazy, watched you succeed, saw you fail [and laughed], picked you up, scolded you, made you strong and you can’t do without him, share this for the best brother in the world”. Quote, Unquote said the Facebook prompter. 

This was just the garbled kind of sentimental hogwash that I should have immediately deleted but I could not. And that is because in my case, it was true not once but twice ever since I was blessed with two hair pulling, driving-me-up-the-wall brothers, who were, in most instances, standing on me rather than standing up for me. 

When I was younger I prayed for a sister and fervently wished for my mother to get hospitalised so that she could bring home a bundled baby. I don’t know how my older brother appeared but that is the way my younger sibling entered our lives. I was six years old at the time, but I remember the scenario clearly.

However, the three of us were such a handful that despite my passionate entreaties to God, our mum stopped bringing any more babies to live with us. I was heartbroken but I had to make do with my personal quota of two brothers. I had no other choice, you see? 

And they did all of the things that the Brothers Week logo promised, and more. When they were bad they were really and truly bad. They fought with me, beheaded my dolls, saw me fall and fail while laughing uproariously, pulled my pigtails, tied my plaits to a doorknob, stole my stationary and so on. The amount of grief they gave me was immense. 

On the other hand when they were good they wiped my tears, applied band-aid on my bruises and taught me to walk on a straight line while balancing a book on my head. It was supposed to correct my posture as well as instill confidence in me. 

Also, after a big fight, whenever I disappeared into the farthest corner of the room in a huff, they sang a particularly sweet song for me. It never failed to bring a smile to my sulking face. 

“It had something to do with the sun and moon, right?” I asked my siblings when I met them recently. 

“Said all the flowers and stars of the land”, my older brother sang. 

“Our sister is one in a thousand”, joined my younger brother.