I Wish To Tie Rakhi To My Brother, But I’m Scared He May Not Make It!

“People say every child is a blessing. Then why does it feel like my son was born into pain?” Says Ritesh’s mother. 

Ritesh is just 4 and a half. And ever since the day I held him in my arms, he has never known what it feels like to be free of suffering.

He has hydrocephalus, a condition where fluid builds up inside the brain. Because of this, my son’s head has swollen so much… it’s hard to lift, hard to rest, hard to even touch without him flinching in pain. He cannot sit on his own. He cannot walk. He can barely even speak.

He cries sometimes not loudly, not wildly but in a soft, choked sound that shatters something inside me. And sometimes, he doesn’t cry at all. He just stares vacantly, his little body too tired to respond.

I remember the first time I saw him try to crawl. He moved just a little… and then collapsed from exhaustion, the weight of his own head too much to bear.

My husband works as a daily wage laborer on other people’s farms. ₹250 a day. That’s all we have to run this house. On some days, we skip vegetables. On most days, we skip milk.
But how do we skip the treatment that could save our son’s life?

The doctors say he needs urgent medical intervention. But where will we get the money?

Sometimes I wonder what I did wrong in a past life for my child to suffer like this in this one.And then I see Meena, his elder sister sit beside him, wipe the sweat off his forehead, tie her old dupatta like a rakhi on his tiny wrist, and whisper,

“Jaldi thik ho ja bhai… phir hum dono milke daudenge, theek waise jaise main sapne mein dekhti hoon…”

She dreams for him… when we can’t even afford to hope. She says, “everyone’s talking about Raksha Bandhan. They ask me what I’ll be giving my brother… but no one asks if I even have a brother who can sit up.

Yes, I have a brother. His name is Ritesh. But he has never called me “Didi.” He has never run behind me. He has never hugged me.

Most days, he just lies in the corner of our room, his head covered with a thin cloth because even the sunlight hurts him. His face is swollen. His little hands twitch from time to time. And when I talk to him, sometimes he looks at me with tired, empty eyes.

I still remember the first time I tied him a rakhi. I was 10. He was just a few months old. He had cried through the whole thing, and I had giggled. I didn’t know what hydrocephalus meant back then. I didn’t know that my brother wouldn’t grow up like other children.

But now I do.  Now I’ve seen the way my parents panic at night when he gets a fever.
I’ve seen them skipping meals to save money. I’ve seen them cry in silence after every hospital visit.

And I’ve seen my brother suffer silently, every single day.

This Raksha Bandhan, I don’t want a gift from him. I just want to give him a chance to live.

I want to see him play. I want to hear him say “Didi.” I want to tie a rakhi to a brother who can one day protect me, not one I’m scared to lose.

So please, if you are reading this… Know that this is not just a story. This is my life.
And my brother’s life is hanging by a thread we can’t afford to hold on to alone.

Help us. Not with a gift, but with a miracle.! Pleads Ritesh’s helpless sister.