Coz We Fight Like Bros

Do you have a childhood anecdote behind that scar on your face? I have a different one for all the odd designs that you can count on me, stories spread over two decades!

Last night while we were casually discussing the relationship between siblings, more specifically the relationship between siblings of same gender, and started to pour our experiences, I inadvertently travelled back in time to my boyhood which is rife with uncountable incidences of our ‘brotherly disagreements’. My brother is about a year and a half older but I would always give him a tough fight. Consequently, our bodies at multiple places, particularly face and hands, have marks from stitches, deep flesh-cuts and bruises that we share in equitable proportion. Our entire childhood in the many rented apartments of Patel Nagar are interspersed with such stories of our bravado, from as early as we could stand till late teenage. We don’t fight anymore, not physically at least. And it has nothing to do with the fact that my brother is now tall enough for us to not fit in one frame! (He is 6”2’). But we would kick each others’ asses in the years when I was not as respectful of the difference in our age and when the disproportion in our size was not this significant, and when I would not discount him on his being my elder brother.  Add to that we were die-hard fans of WWF (WWE back then was WWF). A small trigger over which channel would be watched or who would get to play with the new bat today would incite the Hitman Heart and the Austin in us. Of course it was the worst nightmare for our mother who would rush the wounded warrior to the nearby Bhatia clinic while chiding us with the usual Punjabi curses- khottey, sayappeyjoge, khasma nu khaane- when she saw one of us crying and bleeding, and the other one standing with an innocent face with a ‘I-didn’t-do-it’/’It-isn’t-my-fault’/he-started-it look on the face and a slightly triumphant feeling inside. Our father would at night thrash the other warrior as a reward for his valour. To us, well, the next day was as if nothing happened, except for a little sympathy for the retired hurt and a little guilt for having hurt the brother.

Somehow that, it seems, has changed with brothers over the years. They do not fight as nastily as our generation brothers used to. Instead they write nasty things on their Facebook wall to avenge their insult in some ‘pic’ shared on Watsapp. Perhaps we too would do the same if we were doomed enough to have in our times Facebook and Watsapp and other modern wonders that the technological illiterate me does not know of. All we had were TV video games with Mario and Contra, and a shared cycle, and that were enough for us to end up in blood and shrieks!

I am not decrying the advent of technology here. In our times it was video games, in the generation before us it was Televison, the one after us had computers, today it is the I pads and all the I-fucks…each generation has its toys. But the change that I do ponder on here is that somehow brothers don’t fight like brothers anymore. As naïve and unreasonable as it may sound, there is a great deal of loss that accompanies the absence of these skirmishes in the formative years.  It was these battles that used to bring out men out of boys, so to say in a very dramatic heroic sense. And to have a brother to fight with prepares you for all the ‘pangas’ you would have in school and the street-fights you would have, which in turn would prepare your mind and body to face competitions and challenges of different kind, say a sport or an exam or perhaps even the nervousness of standing on stage or protesting against something in public, which in turn prepares a young boy to face the many battles in times to come. The reason for that is rooted in science- fight, like any other competition, is preceded by a surge in adrenaline and other hormones in the body which is basically the brain’s way to signal an imminent danger or pressure situation and to prepare the body for that upcoming challenge. The sudden change in breathing pattern just at the start of a competition, the hyperactivity or paroxysm the we experienced as one steps on the stage, the increased heartbeats on meeting someone who intimidates us…these are all situationally different nonetheless, in principle, similar to a fight and have the same physiological effect on us is what I mean to highlight.  The more frequently you face these situations, the more comfortable you get with them, the more confident you become and hence your personality blossoms. Apart from that, basic fighting skills are something we all need at many a time. Should the time someone corners you on a dark road or someone misbehaves with a known female be your first fight? Can anyone deny that these incidences in today’s life have become all too common and to fight, at times,is the only option for any self-respecting person? In such a situation all the boyhood clashes become the preparation for the time you actually have to defend yourself or agress. In ancient Rome, fathers used to teach their kids to fight, even if they did not aspire their son to become a soldier. It was these lessons that would forge deeper filial bonds. This training was the inheritance and schooling that the child would receive from his father/ elder brother. And lastly, if Bollywood has taught us something time and again then it is that the boy has to fight to get the girl! Tell me one Bollywood movie where the hero did not kick some ass!! Essentially, it‘s a part of growing up of all tiny men, and it becomes easier if you have some in-house practice from time to time.  Elders, back then, used to say- chhot lagegi tabhi toh bada hoga. Somehow elders today don’t say this anymore, at least not the ones around me.

What has changed in the last decade? Why don’t brothers fight the way Updesh and I used to? Is it because our society has become more civilised and parenting has improved tremendously and thus fraternity now has no place for a little violence? Is it because brothers love each other too much to hurt them? Or is it because the energy which would earlier go into physical activities is now being sapped by fingers tapping somewhere or the other? Could it be because boys do not find their best friend in their brother and seek it outside? From the one person who knew all their secrets, he has become the only person oblivious of it all. Once someone asked kids- how does one express love? Kids replied- by playing and fighting with them. The fight is the love. These scars and marks on us are reminiscent of the growing up that we shared, of the times we grew in, of the quarrels we had as boys, of the love the remains between us, and of the childhood that bonds us. Yeah we may have looked a little better absent these small scars put so prominently and strategically on our faces (I have one at the center of my right cheek and Updesh has one just under his left eye), but then these tiny medals of bravery and fortitude are worth the space they take in the sense that they remind us that we had someone awesome to play and grow up with, someone who wouldn't easily hand over the video game remote or the cycle, someone whom we share an unbreakable bond of blood.

Dedicated to my brother

This is a few days after Updesh had got stitches under his left eye