Esquire India Weekly: Why a Brother's Bond is Like No Other

As happens every year after the festive season, I truly wasn’t keen on coming in to work today. Sure, the horrid AQI doesn’t help but it’s more than that. The festive season isn't just a celebration; it's a reminder of what life is and should be about—good food, loads of laughter and the company of those who matter.

Sitting at work as I type this, I'm reminding myself (yet again) to not get so caught up with meetings, deadlines and commitments that I have to postpone plans that should always remain a priority—a long, lazy lunch with friends, shopping trips with my mother, reading an entire book in one sitting and returning those calls from loved ones who are always trying to keep in touch. Less Teams, more tea (the literal kind) with family, basically.

As Gen Z would put it, we could all stop with the yapping and go and touch grass!

Speaking of loved ones, on the occasion of Bhai Dooj, our Executive Editor, Sonal Nerurkar, has written this week’s newsletter exclusive story, an ode to brothers and the unique flavour they add to our lives. As someone with an older brother, I can confirm it all holds true.

In other reads, fresh on the heels of her Asian Games medal win, Mirabai Chanu chats with Deepti Patwardhan on her journey so far and what lies ahead, Suvrat Arora speaks to author Josh Silver on all things Fruit Fly (it’s an incredible book—do read if you haven't yet!) and Manish Mishra tells you all about how to look dapper as a groomsman for the upcoming wedding season.

That's all from me this week. The meetings are calling again, but I won’t let them come in the way of my dinner plans tonight!

Saurav Bhanot

Digital Editor, Esquire India

He’ll puncture your grandest claims and call your bluff. But no one knows you quite like he does

By Sonal Nerurkar

When he was nine, my brother maintained an account of cold drinks in the fridge. He and I were allowed two a week, from what I recall (I’m sure his memory of it will be more exact), and as someone who thirsted for anything aerated and artificially sweetened, he was very diligent with his hisaab.

What really got his goat was that fourteen-year-old me hated cold drinks. I never drank them, but he needed my permission to reach into my share. He’d argue endlessly about how unfair this was, but in my mom’s house, rules were rules. And I’d be an ass about it. Decades later, he still remembers a bottle of Mangola that stayed in the fridge for over a year, slowly mouldering, because I insisted I would have it. I don’t think either of us opened it.

I’m sure we all have such asinine stories about our siblings. But today is Bhai Dooj, and my bhai is an ocean away. It’s got me thinking about why having a brother in your life is something to be cherished.

Of course, no two sibling relationships are alike. But this is what having a brother has meant to me.

Brothers, in my opinion, don’t judge. You can tell them as little as you like about your inner life, but there’ll be no third degree, no drama. They’ll just show up with the getaway car and help whisk you away. Mine did, once, when I needed it most. He was barely 17 or 18 himself yet showed a maturity I hadn’t expected of someone so young.

That’s not to say it’s all roses.

A brother is also the person most likely to put you in your place when you’re in mixed company, talking up a storm and exaggerating your stories just a little. “That didn’t happen,” he’ll say bluntly, with a knowing smirk, leaving you scrambling to salvage your dignity. Once, when we were children, he told his friend’s sister that she needn’t come over to our house because I thought she was boring. I died!

A brother won’t disguise his disbelief when you take on something so far outside your comfort zone that you’re clearly bluffing your way through it. “A book on cricket,” I remember him saying, before launching into a point-by-point assessment of the bowling stances in the inset pictures I’d chosen. He even sent me the Getty images links.

He can also be surprisingly generous with his approval. Years ago, as an intern, he was on an auditing assignment in a small town in Maharashtra when someone asked if we were related. “He’s read your writing,” he told me, sounding quite startled. We’ve come a long way since. After years of bylines and stories, my brother recently shared a screenshot of this newsletter, saying how happy he was to see my name.

A brother won’t let you get away with much, but when you do shine, he’ll be your biggest cheerleader.

There is a version of you that your brother remembers, one you’ve left behind a long time ago but might occasionally like to revisit. He has a way of bringing it out; a quirk you had, a song you loved, a crush you’d rather forget, even a phrase you wore to death. It’s amazing how the floodgates open when you see yourself through his eyes.

He might even try to take you back there. Like the time he bought tickets to a reunion concert of a band teenage you had plastered all over your bedroom walls, a year ahead of the date, and reminded you to book your flights. You were touched, but you didn’t make it. He didn’t judge; he just went with a friend instead. But he brought you back a T-shirt. That it was a size too small didn’t bother you at all.

“Bro,” “Brother,” “Bud”. The boys I know say these things to one another. I’ve come to think of it as a signal; a reassurance that when things seem a little topsy-turvy, there’s someone saying: I’ve got your back. I am in your corner.

The word “brother” holds a universe of emotions for men who aren’t related by blood. It suggests a familiarity that doesn’t need much explaining, a loyalty that isn’t constantly being negotiated and an intrinsic sense of belonging. Tag-teaming deadlines. WhatsApping one another from different rooms in the same house. Enjoying a tea break in silence. When the world seems to be conspiring against a man, or he’s just a little lonely, a bro provides a sense of protection that he may find difficult to find elsewhere.

Men live by a bro code, and by birth, your male sibling makes you a de facto member of it.

These days, there’s a lot of talk about gendered festivals and the traditional idea of a brother as a protector. Some of that questioning is warranted, but I wonder if, in debating the roles assigned to men and women, we lose sight of the bonds these festivals set out to celebrate.

I was reading about the origins of Bhai Dooj on Devdutt Pattanaik’s website and found the story of Yama and his twin sister Yami. Legend has it that when Yama became the God of Death, Yami was inconsolable and her tears became the River Yamuna. Moved by her love, Yama declared that whoever bathed in the Yamuna on the second day of the waxing moon after Diwali would be liberated from the cycle of rebirth.

Bhai Dooj is a celebration of this brother-sister love, and a reminder that the bonds we share, according to the mythology, can even transcend death. But here on earth, it’s not so much about having a brother who protects you as one who knows you.

Someday, when your parents are long gone, your brother may be the only other person who remembers the house you grew up in and the history you share.

He’ll remember that Mangola in the fridge.

And he’ll probably still think I owe him that drink.