I hated him when he arrived….he was 4 years younger and cried a lot, which made my parents give him lot of attention! Who is this guy who suddenly landed up in my life?!?! Why do my parents fuss over him so much? I mean, it’s not like he can talk, sing or do acrobatic stuff like me, I thought, climbing on to the arm of the sofa. I jumped below and did a gymnast pose like they show on TV, with hands spread wide. My mom did not even notice… hmph!! All he does is eat, cry and sleep! How can they like him for that!
These were the first emotions when my kid brother was born. Little did I know then, that we would grow to become best of friends!
My brother was the good one in the family and I was, well…the other kind. He was quiet, calm and obedient. I, on the other hand, was naughty and talkative, always getting into trouble. But perhaps it was this dissimilarity that also made us get along well. I was the brat, devising ideas for our mischievous things and he was the perfect cover! Mom – “What are u both up to, out in the noon?” Me- “ Nothing amma, bro wants to play hide & seek” and that would be the close of matter, while we were probably throwing stones at the dog in our neighbor's house, or chucking paper rockets at someone on the road and ducking to hide in our balcony, giggling.
As days went by, we both grew out on things to do together. He’d always play cricket and football with his friends on the street and I would curl up in the bed with a book. We got into our own world, with different friends, studies and interests. It felt like we belonged to different generation altogether. I slowly stopped relating to him and Gosh, we fought a lot at that time! I went to hostel for sometime in college and that kind of broke off even the little connection that we shared.
Few years went by; I moved back into the house and my relationship with bro stirred up again. This time we were both in college; I was doing Post grad and him graduation. Slowly we discovered that we still had our same old bond. He spoke the same language (not literally of course) as me now, hung out with friends like me and watched same type of movies too. We had very common likes and dislikes too; he loved Linkin Park and hated sweetened curd, for one :). We both hit it off again, we shared our love for music, he got me totally interested in the world of cars and automobiles, and we both loved watching action movies like the Die hards and the Broken Arrows! We went for long drives and we talked a lot about our friends, family, studies and other stuff about us. It was one cool relationship yet again.
Then I got married. I knew one person I would miss the most would be my bro! Thankfully I wasn’t moving abroad and stayed close by to be in regular touch. But still, I really missed just chatting with him over a cup of mom’s coffee (yes, coffee again:)), going for drives and fighting friendly fights with him. However, we got ourselves into a very good habit of being in constant touch through phone. We both knew, at all points of time, what exactly was going on in each others life. As days went by, our relationship went from cool and friendly to something more meaningful. It is beautiful now. We don’t discuss philosophies or converse about life, but yet there exists the deep connect. We get each other. Now that he’s abroad, he calls me once every week and though we mostly just talk about weather (!!), his studies, movies, music etc…I know it is one conversation that I always look forward to and will always do. He is my perfect brother and cant thank god enough for making him that :).
