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Business News/ Opinion / Minority report | The Bhaiya baggage
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Minority report | The Bhaiya baggage

Liberally used in various contexts, ‘brother’ is one of the most overused terms in India

As suffix or prefix, for postman or porter, auto rickshaw driver, pizza delivery man or police constable “bhaiya” (for brother) is a word you can use for almost any man of any age in our country. Photo: Hindustan Times (Hindustan Times)Premium
As suffix or prefix, for postman or porter, auto rickshaw driver, pizza delivery man or police constable “bhaiya” (for brother) is a word you can use for almost any man of any age in our country. Photo: Hindustan Times
(Hindustan Times)

As suffix or prefix, for postman or porter, auto rickshaw driver, pizza delivery man or police constable “bhaiya" (for brother) is a word you can use for almost any man of any age in our country.

I remember a male nursing aide reacting with offence to a patient calling him this and a folk artist at a crafts bazaar tell a bargaining customer not to diminish his work and dignity by calling him bhaiya.

At the same time, it is worth noting how many men from different walks of life have become immune to its use by shutting out—through social compulsions—its implied or accidental connotations.

Our culture anyway gives us the licence to call people we barely know as aunts, uncles, tau (oldest uncle), appaji, papaji, praji, didi, etc., but bhaiya has a unique status.

Bhai Dooj or Bhai Beej, the third day after Diwali, and by the Hindu calendar, the second (dooj) day of full moon, a day when sisters pray for their brothers and apply a tilak (a vermillion mark on the forehead), is a good time to fret about the “bhaiya baggage of India".

Loitering around in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar market that was worded with shoppers during Diwali, this was the term I heard the most. It hung in the air at some places used with emphasis, at others, it was like a temple bell, ringing again and again. ‘

“Bhaiya’, really?" I muttered when a teenage girl used it for an elderly person at the delivery counter for candles at the annual shopping bazaar of Delhi’s Blind Relief Association. Whatever happened to age-appropriate address?

In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it is culturally correct to bandy about bhaiya for every Sushant, Sudhir and Surinder. In places like Meerut and Varanasi, it is inconspicuous because of overuse but even a taxi driver in Bangalore would tolerate it. But while it escapes our tongues quite naturally for the guy who feeds us paani puri or pulls the cycle-rickshaw, is its use as ubiquitous for a Brahmin wearing his tilak, sacred thread and dhoti or a sharp suited industrialist? In all probability, not. Might there be a class or even a caste issue here?

On the other hand, the word “bhai sahib", the big brother of the informal ‘bhaiya’ in language, is used with much more respect. It indicates an older, stable, brotherly person.

In folklore, Lord Krishna fondly addressed his elder brother Balram as “dau". Brotherliness is a very serious value in India. Not only are brothers fasted for and prayed for, as on Bhai Dooj that is celebrated as the last of the five days of Diwali across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal (as Bhai Phonta), Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa, another festival called Raksha Bandhan marks their position as personal protection (Raksha) officers of their sisters.

I have never understood why political leaders have rakhis tied to their wrists by women of all ages, including the New Delhi ritual of young girls doing that for the Prime Minister and the President. But the general interpretation is expectation of brotherly protection.

South India doesn’t make a fuss about brother worship, but in villages of Haryana, where the khap panchayat rules, every village guy is to be treated as “bhai" by girls. That though never stopped girls (and their bhais) anywhere in the country from carrying on romantic dalliances under the guise of social sanction.

This silly practice was more prevalent earlier. Now with urban permissiveness and modern attitudes towards the concept of a girl’s boyfriend, there is no place or need for such deception in most places outside Haryana.

Bhai is a funny term and not only because the film Munnabhai M.B.B.S. made it out as such. Used for Mumbai gangsters and underworld lords heady with power and paan masala, it is supposed to incite fear. But that’s only a part of the visual it evokes, as the other in stark contradiction suggests a God-fearing man who protects the poor, the helpless and the aged while axing the criminal justice system. Thankfully, Mumbai’s bhai culture that peaked in the 1980s and 1990s is now only alive in Hindi cinema. A super cliche, it was employed to fetch its desired effect in the film Once Upon A Time In Mumbai.

Bhai Salman Khan, the star for whom our word of the week is used as a title of knighthood by his fans and the Mumbai film world in general, has contributed an aura of heroic charitability to Being Bhai. Khan is charity literate and being a bhai of his type implies generosity. As I conclude this, I am with a photographer colleague driving down to Patan in north Gujarat for a story. In Gujarat, “bhai" for men and “ben" (sister) for women is an accepted and expected suffix after the name. Who is to complain then if our cab driver Amrut bhai has been talking non-stop about Narendrabhai’s (Modi) ascent from Gujarat to New Delhi.

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Published: 23 Oct 2014, 07:16 PM IST
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