“KNOW THE WATER IS SWEET BUT BLOOD IS THICKER”

It was a Saturday morning. I was called out by one of my best friends for a spend the day.  Appachchi promised to drop me at my friend’s house. We were travelling in the car. Unlike the other days, there was something strange inside the car. It was the radio channel!  Perhaps the usual Sinhala classics were switched to English. But the ones I heard were all modern.

What if I'm far from home? Oh Brother, I will hear you call

What if I lose it all? Oh Sister, I will help you out! 

Oh! If the sky comes falling down!

For you there’s nothing in this world I wouldn't do

My ears picked up these lines. The song was nice. I badly wanted to hear it again. The music was endearing.  The song just led me picture myself with my sister. Me and my sister, I do not say that we are very close. Perhaps she is eight years younger to me. We are in touch with each other at times, yet it’s not an easy relationship. There was a time where I came off the phone or may be my study table quite worried and dissatisfied very often.  It was fun for her to annoy me and stir up my emotions in front of relations, friends or whoever it may be.

Before the family got populated, all food, the clothes, the fun and even foreign travel only belonged to me, just one person. When my sister, Aroshi arrived; space was made for her, things changed.  I eventually started sharing the room with her, gradually my stories, the books I read and even frocks and t shirts which were stuffed inside the cupboard and never worn! We had bad days. We fought as much as we could, got ourselves hurt but healed at the same time. It’s the same even now. There are times I don’t approve her as “my own sister” in my mind for the constant rivalry between us. I did love her despite fights. They were just love; we did not consider the reason as to why and how we loved each other being kids. I remember the days cuddling her, making her sleep and playing inside her cot when she was little. They are the evidence of the love we had and a love confirmed till the last when everything fell away.

I am 21 now and I realize that she has become my creator and my history. She has taught me to give a lot, for giving has become a usual habit in me. Especially that giving is “giving all” and that there is no take back .She has tutored me that anger and hatred is bad. The more I get bad tempered, all my work get flipped. So I always work to avoid such vexation. By and by she has devised self-control within me and patience to bear all annoyances. One thing that counts more of all her teaching is that love is not always predicted and one is   not guaranteed of being loved in return.  One should not be necessarily loved to be loved back again. There can be enough and more times she criticizes me.  Many times of aversion. She may not share chocolates or books or stories with me as I do. I’ll be the forever “dumb retard” of hers, but there will be nothing that I wouldn't do for her to keep her safe and happy.

After all she is a universal teacher that promises a life last long.

Avicii, a Swedish singer made me think of all these until I reached my friend’s house. The official song of Avicii named “Hey brother” is a write up dedicated for those who died from the Vietnam War. There are pictures and clips of the Vietnam War interspersed in the video. The video goes on and on depicting the day to day life shared by a much older boy and a little one, like playing basketball, walking along the railway tracks, riding bicycles and family celebrations. At the end it is revealed that the elder brother is in fact his father who died in a war and the boy was reliving his father’s life from a memory box. The song illustrated true brotherhood, companions in battle and danger and companions for life beyond grave.

Today many singers focus mostly on the love life in many of their songs. They forget the family and siblings. Family and siblings are those with whom we experience love in first hand in our lives and carry it further unconsciously to our adult lives. They are important because they craft values within us and most importantly construct a way of life to be lived. Avicii repeats that “blood is thicker than water”. Today’s friends can be tomorrows’ backstabbers .Sometimes we realize later in life that family and siblings would always reach down to help when nobody is out there to help. They do not mind how much you've been naughty to them because they treasure the bond.

Therefore we gotta believe in love, we gotta believe in one another. A day that happens we would discover that every relationship needs constant sustenance and mutual respect. There is no exception for sisters and brothers too.