I would wake up to the aroma of cholay-puri my mum cooked before departing for our nani’s place on Raksha Bandhan. While she reminded us of the ‘shubh muhurat’ to tie the rakhis, I would quickly jump out of bed and wake my brother up. We got dressed, decorated the sweet thali, tied rakhis to each other, and lined up for the perfect picture Papa would take. And, out of nowhere, my brother would take out a Cadbury Celebration (it was a huge deal back in the day) for me. This was an annual Raksha Bandhan ritual.As is typical, it may look that way, as rightly so, because there was nothing fancy about what we did that day. Years later, now that I am approaching my 30s, it made me reflect on my tumultuous bond with my little brother, who turned 26 this year.I was going through our old photos the other day. It was one of those photographs that had probably seemed ordinary when it was taken. There we were, my younger brother and I, dressed for the occasion, sitting next to each other with the slightly awkward smiles children put on when an adult asks them to pose. The photograph had the unmistakable quality of old family pictures, a little grainy, but somehow more alive than the photographs we take now.I stared at it for longer than I expected to. I don’t remember what gifts we exchanged that Raksha Bandhan. But I remember the feeling that came rushing back when I looked at our faces: we belonged to each other in a way that seemed unquestionable then.The bond of childhoodUnlike a conventional elder sister, I never felt that being his older sister meant I had to be fiercely protective of my brother. Very early on, I had decided to make him my confidant, and vice versa. However, the inherent qualities of being a sister include being protective of your little brother. I remember defending him when one of the teachers called on him in school.If someone upset him, I took it personally. If he was nervous about something, I wanted to fix it. I was the older sibling, and in my mind, that meant I was partly responsible for making sure the world was kind to him. He, in turn, trusted me. Growing up has a strange way of changing relationships (Photo: Pexels)There were things he told me that he didn’t necessarily tell our parents. Small secrets, school stories, embarrassments, things he was worried about, things he was excited about. I became the person he could call when he didn’t know what to do.Story continues below this adOne memory I keep returning to is his Class 12 result day. He called me. It wasn’t a happy conversation (because his results were horrendous). But I remember the significance of that phone call because, at the time, it felt completely natural that he would reach out to me on a day that mattered to him. I was part of his emotional map.Looking back, I think I have started to forget the good old memories. Not necessarily the calls themselves, or the school years, or even the version of us frozen in that Raksha Bandhan photograph.I miss being someone he instinctively turned to.How adulthood quietly pulls us apartGrowing up has a strange way of changing relationships without announcing that anything is changing.There is no particular day when siblings become distant. There is no conversation where you decide that you will no longer know the details of each other’s lives. It happens quietly. A missed call here. Different routines. Different cities. Different friends. Different priorities. And then one day, you realise that the person whose life you once knew in such granular detail has become someone you have to ask questions about.We grew up. And somewhere along the way, we grew apart. I don’t think either of us consciously chose it. Life simply began pulling us in different directions.Story continues below this adI built a life that increasingly had very little to do with the life he was building. He had his own experiences, his own struggles, his own friendships and his own ways of making sense of the world. I had mine. The older we became, the more separate those worlds seemed.And I wish I could say I handled that distance gracefully. I didn’t. I became angry. Sometimes, unnecessarily angry.When anger masks vulnerabilityI have been rude to him. I have snapped at him. I have responded to him with irritation when perhaps he deserved patience. There have been conversations where I have heard myself speaking and thought, Why am I talking to my own brother like this? There have been times when I have failed to have a conversation with him and turned to Mum to express my point of view rather than sharing it with him.But anger is often easier to express than hurt. It is easier to say, “Why don’t you call?” It is easier to complain that he doesn’t tell me anything anymore than to admit that I feel left out of his life.Story continues below this adIt is easier to be rude than vulnerable. For a long time, I thought I was angry with him. I am beginning to realise that I am angry at the distance.Don't Miss | In an era of 10-minute deliveries, why weekly markets have become my ‘dopamine hit’At all the invisible things that came between us. At time. At adulthood. At circumstances. At the physical and emotional space that accumulated between two people who once shared almost everything. Perhaps I am also angry at the fact that growing up does not come with instructions for maintaining the relationships that once felt effortless.When we were children, we didn’t have to schedule a relationship. We lived in the same house. We crossed paths in the corridor. We ate meals together. We annoyed each other. Our relationship existed simply because our lives existed alongside each other.Adulthood took away that convenience. Now, a relationship requires intention. And that is the part neither of us quite learnt. Sometimes I wonder what he thinks of me now. Is he proud of me for the woman I have become? Or am I just a rude sister who has stopped making efforts?Story continues below this ad I don’t want to be the sister who only remembers how close we once were (Photo: Pexels)Does he see me as the older sister who was once protective of him? Or as the person who is often impatient and difficult? Does he remember calling me on his result day? Does he remember running after me in the middle of the road and hurting his chin? Does he remember that I used a corner of my yellow frock to stop his chin from bleeding? Does he remember snitching about me to my class teacher? Does he miss that version of us too?I don’t know. That is the uncomfortable truth about growing apart from someone you love. You simply begin to lose access not only to their present but also to the version of yourself that existed with them.I was a different person with my brother when we were younger. I was softer, I think. More involved. More curious. I knew what made him laugh, what annoyed him, what he was scared of. I knew his world because our worlds overlapped. Things are awkward now. That realisation hurts more than I let on.The misleading assumption of familyThere is also something peculiar about sibling relationships. Unlike friendships, they don’t usually come with the fear of losing each other completely. There is an assumption that siblings will always be siblings. That no matter how long you go without speaking properly, there will always be another Raksha Bandhan, another birthday, another family gathering.Story continues below this adAnd that assumption makes us careless. We forgive siblings for things we might not forgive others. We speak to them in ways we would never speak to a friend. We expect them to understand our moods, our silences and our anger without explaining any of it.I have done that too. I have expected him to understand what my anger actually means. I have expected him to understand that I want the best for him. I have expected him to, for once, try to comprehend my concern.Also Read | Musafir Cafe: Why Sudha, Chander, and Preeti all felt right to meBut how is he supposed to know that when I am irritated with him, sometimes what I really mean is, I wish you would let me into your life again? How is he supposed to know that when I complain about him not focusing on his career, what I am actually saying is, I want you to thrive?How is he supposed to know that my rudeness sometimes comes from the strange grief of watching someone I love become a stranger in small ways? Maybe he doesn’t.Story continues below this adThe old photograph made me think about all of this because, for a moment, it allowed me to see us without the accumulated history of adulthood. There was no resentment in that photograph. Just two children.An older sister who thought she could protect her younger brother from almost anything, and a younger brother who seemed to believe that I had his back.Learning to build a new bondI don’t know if we can ever go back to that relationship. Maybe we shouldn’t. We are not those children anymore. I don’t want to pretend that we are. We have grown into people with separate identities, separate lives and separate ways of seeing the world.But perhaps growing up doesn’t have to mean leaving everything behind. Maybe the relationship can become something else. Less about knowing everything, and more about choosing to ask. Less about expecting closeness, and more about creating it.Story continues below this adI don’t want to be the sister who only remembers how close we once were. I want to know who he is now. The person he has become. I have seen glimpses of what a nice man he has become when I see him with our pet dog, when I see him being kind to strangers, when I see him playing with kids. I am still angry.But I am finally beginning to understand what that anger is trying to tell me. I want him to tell me things without feeling like he has to be careful around me. I want to know what makes him happy now, what worries him, what he is working towards, what he is afraid of.Raksha Bandhan, with all its rituals around siblinghood, can make this particularly obvious. Every year, the festival asks us to celebrate a bond that supposedly exists unchanged through time. There are rakhis, photographs, sweets, gifts and messages about forever.But relationships don’t remain unchanged just because we want them to. They evolve. Sometimes beautifully. Mostly painfully. My relationship with my brother has evolved into something I am still learning to understand.What experts sayDr Rimpa Sarkar, psychologist, PhD, Sentier Wellness, Mumbai, explained that older siblings often develop a protective role because they are slightly more experienced within the family system and may naturally take on responsibilities towards a younger sibling.For an older sister, this can become an important part of her identity, particularly if she has spent years helping, guiding, defending or emotionally supporting her younger brother.However, as both siblings grow older, the relationship naturally needs to shift from one between a protector and the protected to one between two adults who are equals. “The protective instinct may remain, but it ideally becomes less about managing the younger sibling’s life and more about being available when support is genuinely needed,” Dr Sarkar said.She also noted that a younger brother who once openly confided in his older sister may become more distant as he grows up, and that this can be a natural part of developing independence. Adolescence and early adulthood involve developing autonomy, forming an identity outside the family and increasingly turning towards peers and romantic relationships for emotional and social connection.“A younger sibling who once relied heavily on an older sister may gradually feel the need to establish himself as an independent adult,” she said. “That does not necessarily mean the emotional bond has disappeared. Often, the frequency and form of communication changes rather than the underlying attachment disappearing.”Dr Sarkar added that the challenge for the older sibling is to allow this independence without interpreting it as rejection.When growing apart manifests as irritation, arguments or rudeness rather than openly expressed sadness, it may be because anger is often easier to express than vulnerability. “Saying ‘I miss how close we used to be’ can feel emotionally exposed, whereas irritation or criticism provides a kind of psychological protection,” she explained.Years of established communication patterns can also make frustration the language through which siblings express unmet emotional needs. “Sometimes the argument is not really about the immediate issue at all. It can represent feelings of being overlooked, replaced or no longer important in the other person’s life,” the expert said.Recognising the sadness underneath the irritation, Dr Sarkar added, can help siblings respond to each other with greater empathy.An older sister’s anger over her younger brother no longer sharing details of his life with her can also be understood as a form of grief over the closeness they once shared. “There can be a genuine sense of grief when a relationship changes, even when nobody has actually done anything wrong,” she said.The sister, Dr Sarkar explained, may not simply be angry about not knowing what her brother is doing. She may be grieving the version of their relationship in which she was his first confidante and an important part of his everyday world.“It can help to acknowledge that loss without treating his independence as a betrayal,” the psychologist said. Rather than demanding the old closeness back, the sister could communicate her feelings while acknowledging that her brother has grown up. “That allows her to honour her feelings without placing the emotional responsibility on him,” she added.At the same time, the psychologist believes adult siblings can rebuild emotional intimacy, although trying to recreate their exact childhood relationship may create unnecessary expectations. “Adult siblings can absolutely become emotionally close again, but trying to recreate the exact relationship they had as children may create unnecessary expectations,” she said. Their lives, responsibilities, personalities and emotional needs have changed, making it healthier to build a new version of intimacy based on who they are today.That could involve regular calls, shared interests, occasional trips, checking in during difficult periods or simply creating small rituals that belong to their adult relationship. “The goal is not necessarily to return to childhood closeness, but to create a relationship where both siblings feel valued, respected and emotionally available to each other while still allowing each other independence,” Dr Sarkar said.