Hindu Sisters, Muslim Brothers: Raksha Bandhan Stories about Chosen Family
Words by Shivani Parikh
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Hindu Sisters, Muslim Brothers: Raksha Bandhan Stories about Chosen Family by Shivani Parikh
A celebration of the bond between sisters and brothers, the holiday Raksha Bandhan’s origins are found in the epic Mahabharata. In the Mahabharata, Lord Krishna cut his finger on his weapon of choice, Sudarshan Chakra (the spinning disc), while killing Shishupala, the Chedi region’s king. Seeing Krishna’s injury, the Pandavas’ wife Draupadi tore some cloth from her saree and tied it on his finger to staunch the profuse bleeding.
Considering the cloth that she tied a sacred thread, Krishna promised her that he would protect her in the event of imminent harm. When the Kauravas tried to disrobe Draupadi — after pulling her by her hair, dragging her to their court, and manhandling her, as she was gambled away to them by Yudhishthira — Krishna salvaged her dignity through divine intervention and by providing immeasurable reams of cloth to keep her covered.
Thus from the beginning, there was always a pretext for the idea of having chosen family ties, as Krishna was not Draupadi’s brother by birth, but rather the Pandavas’ cousin. In a world more divided and precarious than ever before, there are several examples of Hindu women extending the tradition of raksha bandhan to Muslim men. Duos Rani Karnavati and Mughal Emperor Humayun; Gangubai Kathiawadi and Karim Lala; and singer Lata Mangeshkar and actor Dilip Kumar celebrated this holiday together, demonstrating in spite of ostensible differences, the creative possibilities for interfaith solidarity.