I love the festival fo Rakhi: As long as I am away from home

I remember, very clearly, the tension I used to have one day before Rakshabandhan.
Before I go into details, let me add that "Rakshabandhan", like innumerable indian festivals, has got a theme and the one associated with this festival is that of the relation between brother and sister. Brother is supposed to take care of his sister, protect her from Allauddin-Khilji-types-road-side-romeos or sometimes even from Rana-Rattan-Singh-types-boy-friends of his sister (even if, very probably, she may not like it that way)
Anyway, the reasons I used to get tense on the previous evening of rakshhabandhan had nothing to do with protecting my sisters - the days,when I used to get tense during the pre-rakhi(popular name for the festival "Rakshhabandhan" ) days, my sisters used to protect me from my "friends" (girl or boys, whatsoever) (it could not continue long since I moved to hostel pretty soon) -. The reason was just associated with yours truly.
Well,rakhi started with the theme of brother committing to protecting his sister, but gradually, as with everything, people realised that protection/security can also be sold/purchased as a commodity, the thing "protection" got converted to "money" for the convinience of all. When did this transformation take place, I have no idea, but I have seen it that way since the first day I remember about it. In rakhi, sisters tie a band to the brother and the brother gives her some money. Whatever the amount of money was, it always seemed HUGE to me (even if it was some money which my mom gave to me to be passed on to my sisters, once they had tied the band). This feeling of money being big-amount came probably because I was too dumb a kid back then who used to give all his financial gifts ( you get it when you meet your elder relatives like your grandma or uncles and aunts) to mom and my sisters used to keep it with them and hence any more money they got during rakhi, made me relatively poorer.
Not just the financial drain that I can avoid once I am far from my sisters, makes me like the rakhi-from-distance, but there is another much more significant advantage I gained out of being farther from home-town during the festival of rakhi.
I am so happy that I dont have to worry anymore about a particular nice-beautiful-charming-sweet-..-.. girl from my neighbourhood tying me rakhi!!!!! (remember the theme of rakhi)
When you are a kid, your emotions regarding the opposite sex is just not given any respect. Its treated with so much insensitivity, I am surprised. Anyway, what happens is that if you happen to have some girl around who is not your sister, but she is around at the time when the band (btw, the band is also called "rakhi", same name as the festival) is being tied to ur wrist, that girl would also be asked, in 'courtsey', to tie one rakhi to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Its such a dilemmatic situation, one needs to think sometime to come up with some diplomatic answer to accept or to deny this offer of tying a band symbolising sister-brother relation between the two !!!!
Well, many guys dont mind spending money on a beautiful girl, but not this way, for sure. You give her the money for tying the rakhi on ur wrist and also, u accept her as your sister!!!!!!!!!!
So, its anybody's guess now, why all the worries and tension.


PS: I must add that I did witness some remarkable change in this hypocritic gesture of asking another girl to tie a rakhi, even if she is not your sister, even is she happens to be around. Few years back, I mismanaged my vacation-timing/place and happenned to be at a cousin sister's place during rakhi that year. But I was pleasantly shocked to find that no other girl was asked to tie me rakhi except my cousin . But anyway, I had learned how to handle such situations (you really become street-smart if you start living in a hostel (that too one like mine) since your are just 12 years old). Back then, when I didn't know, nobody helped me, rather made things worse for me!!!!!!!