Family traditions are one way that TCKs find ways to stay connected to their identity. Pradeep Rajendran shares about an Indian holiday that has kept siblings connected even when they are on other sides of the world. This article was first published by Pradeep on Pradeeprj Substack and has been given permission for it to be republished here.
My sister has always had a beautiful tradition of tying rakhis for me, even when we were very young. It symbolises our bond, trust, and the closeness we have in our friendship. Even when we’ve spent years apart, on the date of this festival, no matter where she is in the world (often living out of a suitcase), she’s always found a way to send me a rakhi, and sometimes several.
Usually, when the sacred threads arrive in the mail, they end up as bookmarks of whatever I’m reading. Over time, I’ve found rakhis in different books upon re-readings.
This year, my sister is home, so we got to go for breakfast to my current favourite South Indian restaurant; a small, quick space that serves Tamil and more local Kannadiga food, it is frequented by people working in corporates, driving autorickshaws, and moving quickly as Bangalore city shuffles. And then we go rakhi shopping together.
As a family, we moved around India our entire lives, never staying in one place for more than five years. My mother is from Moradabad in UP, her father grew up in Rajasthan, in a small town called Alwar that I visited to try to get glimpses of what he might have seen. Her mother was from the Indian state of Central Pradesh which no longer exists in post-Independent India. My father is from Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, but moved to Bihar as a young man and forever after identified himself as a Bihari. My sister and I picked up little traditions as we moved, that became parts of our identities, but the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan is a big one, because it’s about our relationship, and writing this I realise that the words mean ‘to tie a protective bond’.
Here, she takes a picture of me frowning at an Iron Man rakhi – I’m marvelling at how American idols have made their way into Indian traditions. But India has absorbed many identities over time, often binding them to herself. And I wonder what this means, especially for a brother and sister who are rootless, Indian, and navigate many worlds.
Pradeep’s family lived on a ship for seven years. He was born in Bramhall, England before moving to his passport country, India. He went to school in Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai, although as a family they traveled and lived in several places in the subcontinent. He feels like he grew up on trains and often quotes V.S. Naipaul when thinking about identity as an infinite trapdoor that he’s always falling through.
He writes about the paradox of being Indian and Christian at the same time, heads a media company Quixote Creatives, and runs Discovery Camps: skills building adventure programs in South Asia, designed for TCKs to equip them with tools to navigate their worlds. You can find Pradeep on Instagram or at his website.
For more information on the TCK camps: https://www.miilaconsulting.com/discovery-camps
