{"id":10368,"date":"2011-08-16T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2011\/08\/16\/hindu-americans-make-brother-sister-holiday-their-own\/"},"modified":"2011-08-16T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T12:00:00","slug":"hindu-americans-make-brother-sister-holiday-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2011\/08\/16\/hindu-americans-make-brother-sister-holiday-their-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Hindu Americans Make Brother-Sister Holiday Their Own"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source<\/a><\/p>\n

USAS, August 10, 2011 (blog.chron.com) There’s Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, even Grandparents Day, and in the Hindu religion there’s even a day set aside to celebrate the bond between siblings, Raksha Bandhan. On the holiday, August 13 this year, sisters tie a sacred thread on their brothers’ wrist, a symbol of her prayers for his protection.<\/p>\n

Hindu families in the U.S. are less likely to live near one another to exchange the rakhi bracelets, so sisters rely on mailing them or they will give them to a friend or neighbor who’s like a brother. <\/p>\n

Houstonians Beth Kulkarni and Vijay Pallod aren’t related by blood, but celebrating Raksha Bandhan together for the past 15 years made the two of them, both leaders in the local Hindu community, brother and sister by faith. “We developed this bond, and it was like a brother-sister bond,” Kulkarni said. “I’ll tie the rakhi on his wrist to wish him protection for any bad things that might happen, and he vows to protect me.”<\/p>\n

Last year, women with the Indo-American Political Action Committee of Greater Houston introduced local officials to Raksha Bandhan, performing a short ceremony and presenting them with the traditional beaded bracelets, which are either bought at an Indian grocery store or made by hand.<\/p>\n

“It’s also an opportunity for Hindu Americans to share traditions beyond the community,” said Suhag Shukla, with the Hindu American Foundation.”The spirit of the holiday is brotherhood, and this extension is very unique, very American thing.” During the Raksha Bandha ceremony, sisters apply red vermilion powder to their brother’s forehead and tie on the bracelet. The two then exchange sweets, and the brother offers a gift in appreciation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source USAS, August 10, 2011 (blog.chron.com) There’s Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, even Grandparents Day, and in the Hindu religion there’s,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}