{"id":3231,"date":"2016-07-15T07:45:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T02:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3231"},"modified":"2016-07-15T07:45:32","modified_gmt":"2016-07-15T02:15:32","slug":"raksha-bandhan-school-enforced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3231","title":{"rendered":"Raksha Bandhan in Co-Ed Schools: An Enforced Ritual for Involuntary Bro-Zoning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

M<\/span>y favourite thing about 2000\u2019s Mela is a furry-chested Aamir Khan doing a <\/p>re-enactment of his first LSD experience<\/span><\/a> in \u201cDekho 2000 Zamana Aa Gaya\u201d. A close second is the sequence where Faisal Khan\u2019s character valiantly agrees to become Twinkle Khanna\u2019s rakhi brother after spending literally three days with the woman. A time span in which she has him and his BFF almost killed multiple times. If this isn\u2019t bizarre enough, risking his life for a village full of strangers comes with the territory of being Rupa\u2019s bhaiya, as does being beaten to within an inch of his life. Since this is Bollywood however, the power of the almighty bhaiya bond trounces everything at the end. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s a brilliant example of how we, as a society, expect any man, regardless of his consent, to be a dutiful bhaiya to whichever damsel in distress ties a colorful cotton thread on his wrist. There\u2019s few things that are so equally detrimental to both sexes. On one hand, it fuels the already out-of-control levels of <\/span>toxic masculinity<\/span><\/a> in this country. And on the other, it enables white knights to further come to the aid of women who might not even really need their help. It doesn\u2019t help that we live in a country where then-Godman, now-prisoner Asaram Bapu <\/span>insinuated<\/span><\/a> in 2013 that the Delhi gang rape victim should\u2019ve addressed her rapists as \u201cbhaiya\u201d and they wouldn\u2019t have harmed her. <\/span>\n\nStatements like Asaram\u2019s are part of the reason I\u2019ve always had an inherent issue with boys and girls being encouraged to forge unnatural familial bonds. It\u2019s probably why in middle school, the impending arrival of Raksha Bandhan triggered nightmares in the mind of every pubescent boy. \u201cYaar, what if Ruchi ties me a rakhi?\u201d, I remember a petrified classmate asking me, afraid that he\u2019d be forced to address <\/span>his crush<\/span><\/a> of two years as \u201cRuchi didi\u201d. <\/span>\n\nBack then, the \u201cfriendzone\u201d was a place of privilege. It meant you still had a shot with a girl or a guy you liked. As a hormonal pre-teen with a crush, your hierarchy in descending order was as follows: She shares her tiffin with me, she <\/span>friendzoned<\/span><\/a> me, she asked me to pick a <\/span>chip-chop<\/span><\/a> colour, she doesn\u2019t know I exist. The last thing on the menu, which meant that you were well and truly out of her league, was if you got rakhizoned.<\/span>\n\nOften, this was involuntary. It was actually enforced in several co-ed schools. Teachers would ensure that girls tied rakhis on the wrists of their male classmates, rendering any other relationship between them illicit. And thereby rendering the point of a co-ed institution, where presumably, the idea is to foster healthy interpersonal relationships between the sexes, null and void. It stems from a place which believes that young boys and girls are incapable of being friends. There is a very <\/span>healthy middle ground<\/span><\/a> that exists between couplehood and outright involuntary kinship. And by denying children the right to explore that middle ground, an institution sets the tone for a divisive understanding of grown-up relationships that fall into a binary: Girls and boys can either be siblings or couples. It\u2019s one of the reasons so many of us still believe in the \u201cladka aur ladki kabhi dost nahi ho sakte\u201d theory.<\/span>\n\nI suppose these institutions can only be as good as the faculty members that teach there. And I guess it is hard for anyone, especially grown-up teachers managing a menagerie full of bouncing jellybeans, to erase their own conditioning. Which is why you see <\/span>teachers shaming girls<\/span><\/a> for wearing short skirts or being \u201cfriendly with boys\u201d. It\u2019s bad enough that we have the kids of tomorrow learning skewed versions of \u201c<\/span>the modern girl<\/span><\/a>\u201d, but may be the buck needs to stop at peddling the idea that giving young boys the mantle of \u201cbhaiya\u201d is the best defence against fostering any other kind of relationships.<\/span>\n

It\u2019s bad enough that we have the kids of tomorrow learning skewed versions of \u201cthe modern girl\u201d, but may be the buck needs to stop at peddling the idea that giving young boys the mantle of \u201cbhaiya\u201d is the best defence against fostering any other kind of relationships.<\/blockquote>\nChange is slow, and I gather that archaic mindsets in our education system will continue to espouse <\/span>delusional practices<\/span><\/a>. Which is why, this year too, Raksha Bandhan will trigger millions of conflicted pre-teen boys and girls into asking their still-developing minds why they are required to be dragged into a kinship despite sharing no DNA with the other?<\/span>\n\nMaybe it\u2019s time we began to treat rakhis as a symbol of what they used to be: a celebration of the bond between brother and sister (with a much-needed update). And not a metaphorical chastity belt that wards off the prospect of any other kind of relationship. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raksha Bandhan remains a painful memory for many of us because of the involuntary \u201cbro zoning\u201d that went on in co-ed schools. Teachers would ensure that girls tied rakhis on the wrists of their male classmates, rendering any other relationship between them illicit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":3232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3452],"tags":[4594,459,6292,6296,6297,4495,1770,6298,6294,917,1739,6299,6295,6300,1935],"class_list":["post-3231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-asaram-bapu","tag-bhai","tag-brothers","tag-co-ed","tag-dress-code","tag-friendships","tag-friendzone","tag-girls-and-boys","tag-rakhi","tag-raksha-bandhan","tag-school","tag-segregation","tag-sisters","tag-slut-shaming","tag-toxic-masculinity"],"yoast_head":"\nRaksha Bandhan in Co-Ed Schools: An Enforced Ritual for Involuntary Bro-Zoning<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Raksha Bandhan remains a painful memory for many of us because of the involuntary \u201cbro zoning\u201d that went on in co-ed schools. 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