This story is from August 18, 2016

Siblings put aside rivalry to honour relationship on Rakshabandhan

Sujata Gambhir is doubly prepared for Rakshabandhan celebrations on Thursday. This year, apart from her brother, a few cousins would also be dropping by. She has already purchased rakhis to tie on their wrists.
Siblings put aside rivalry to honour relationship on Rakshabandhan
<p>Representative image<br></p>
PUNE: Sujata Gambhir is doubly prepared for Rakshabandhan celebrations on Thursday.
This year, apart from her brother, a few cousins would also be dropping by. She has already purchased rakhis to tie on their wrists. The festivities will also involve a simple ceremony and, of smearing tilak on the forehead of her brothers and offering them sweets. in return, she is hopeful that her brothers will gift her something of her choice.
Celebrations will be similar across many homes in the city as siblings get together to observe the festival that marks kinship between brothers and sisters.

While women and girls tie a rakhi on their brothers' wrists out of love, the men promise to honour the thread with a pledge to protect them under all circumstances. Exchanging gifts is another trend that makes the celebration more interesting.
Elaborating on her plans, Gambhir said, "Every year, my brother and I celebrate Rakshabandhan together but this time, a couple of our cousins too are in the city and I will be celebrating the festival with all of them. The rituals are only symbolic but the point is to honour the relationship. I look forward to eating the yummy dishes that my mother will prepare plans to dish out for the occasion as we will have more relatives coming in too. Every generation in the family has their siblings and they tries to get together at someone's house every year. It's a lovely way to catch up and meet everyone. We get to dress up too and even get gifts, so it's a nice festive mood all around."

Attempting to connect siblings separated by distances, mobile service provider Vodafone has organized a special Rakhi Activity across its stores in the citywhere people can walk in to send digital rakhi messages to their brothers or sisters.
Visitors toPeople (even non subscribers) visiting the stores can get their pictures clicked through the tab at the store and instantly upload them on social media. Inviting participation, business head (Maharashtra and Goa) of Vodafone India Ashish Chandra said, "Rakshabandhan represents the unique bond of love between sisters and brothers and, with this initiative, we are inviting not just our customers but the entire city to join us in the festive spirit while giving them an opportunity to reach out their siblings and surprise them with a beautiful message."
This year, some groups of women and young girls will also be visiting about 2,000 defence personnel posted at four army units in the city Aundh Cantonment, Lullanagar, Bombay Engineering Kirkee and Milkha Singh Sports Complex on Thursday to tie rakhis, on their wrists and give them sweets and greeting cards.
Conceptualized by Dhruv Defence Motivation Centre, the event will involve hundreds of members of the Pune Ladies, a social networking group on Facebook, besides students, teachers and principals of four city-based schools. All participating ladies will be dressed in traditional attire to mark the festive day.
"The idea is to thank our soldiers, who selflessly guard the country's borders and round the clock, besides rise to the occasion during any form of calamity facing the nation. It's a civilian's duty to appreciate and honour them with love," the organizers of the programme announced.
Describing the reasons for organizing the programme, Jyothi Bhuvanraj, who is sponsoring the photography coverage of the programme said, "Every year, the army jawans get a lot of rakhis from family, friends and well-wishers across the country. Unfortunately, they have nobody to tie them on their wrists. We will visit them at their units to celebrate the festival. It's a social movement to greet and thank them for protecting the country."
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