Gifts For Bhai Dooj

About

One festival, and at least five names for it It falls on the second day after Diwali, in the bright fortnight of Kartik. It is Bhai Beej or Bhau Beej across Maharashtra and Gujarat, Bhaubij in everyday Marathi spelling, Bhai Phota in Bengal, Bhai Tika in Nepal and the hill country, and Yama Dwitiya in the older almanacs. That last name carries the story: Yamuna received her brother Yama at her house, marked his forehead and fed him, and he asked that any brother received that way be granted long life. The rite has not changed much since. The sister applies the tilak and prays. The brother gives something back. The tradition says the brother gives. Most people shopping are buying for one. Roughly four in five people looking for a gift for this festival are looking for one to give a brother, which is the reverse of the ritual direction. Both are honest. In most families now the giving runs both ways, and a sister who wants something of her own to hand over on the day is not doing it wrong. Choose by who the person is rather than by which side of the tilak they stood on. Raksha Bandhan, five months earlier in Shravan, runs on the same logic with a thread in place of a tilak, and the pieces that suit it mostly suit this day too. For a brother, choose by where he spends his day A brother who drives is best served by a dashboard piece , because it is the one kind of gift he will see every morning without having to remember it. A brother living away from home, in another city or another country, is the case a pocket temple was made for: it folds shut, it travels in a suitcase, and it answers the problem of a rented room with nowhere sensible to put a shrine. A brother with a household of his own can take something for the shelf. A Kamdhenu cow with her calf is given for prosperity and reads as a blessing on the house rather than a present to a person, and a Ganesha is the safest choice in any home where you are not certain which deity they keep. Jagannath suits the east, w