Brothers - Storytelling Wk. 3

"Your brother never meant to spite you. He's just never had anyone challenge him until you came along. I know I should have raised him better, but boys will be boys".

I always thought Vali was the absolute coolest guy. He was excellent at stickball, track, and any other test of athleticism and strength. Mom always said that Vali had muscles that were weaved by God. It was odd that someone so blessed could be such a short-tempered and short-sighted brother. Despite his physical advantages, he always tried to prove himself to me -- usually by demonstrating how much farther he could toss a boulder or how easily he could break a tree limb. It bothered him to no end that I couldn't care less about his supernatural strength. This usually caused him to be further incensed, storming off only to later come back and ridicule me for my piano playing or my science projects. I never wanted to argue, but he made it happen. It only got worse.

Source: Wikimedia commons

He often decided it was his obligation to protect the town's animals from ravenous wolves or to jump into burning buildings to check for life inside instead of waiting for our fire department. His favorite "responsibility" was probably whenever storms would scatter the livestock into Cave Creek nearby. Vali would never acknowledge that his servitude was about doing the nice thing for people. He really just enjoyed people knowing that they were indebted to him. On a particularly violent and stormy night, Vali had been digging out some pigs but was taking forever to come home. Against my mother's best wishes, I set out for the creek side to make sure he was okay. It must have been a solid eight hours of searching before I gave up. We reported to the police that he had gone missing, but they said that there had been tons of people stranded in the storm, most of whom were presumed dead. I knew that my brother could not so easily be taken away by a fickle storm, so I was not nearly as devastated as my mother.

On my way home from school each day, I looked out upon our fields, fully expecting to see him running like a madman through the tallgrass. It had been nearly three weeks since the storm, and I had to have been the only one who still thought he was coming back. We heard a sudden thump on the back door. It was Vali! I could not keep myself from grinning while he embraced my mother. I should have noticed the bottle of gin in his knapsack and I should have noticed that he had fresh clothes. But who was I to be upset when the pride of our town was back?

Vali was different now. At first, I thought he was joking around with me when he talked of the night he went missing. He'd say, "I expected you to come fish me out of the creek, you scrawny punk." or "Someone as smart as you should have known I would be staying with Betsy down the road."  Vali was arrogant and short-tempered, but I never thought he had it in him to stay the weekend with Betsy -- the girl he once promised to me I would marry someday. When I found out that he and Betsy were much more than just "roommates" during his time away from home, I was crushed.

I felt like I was slowly being towed away from everything that I loved. Vali spent all of his time with my former love. And when he did manage to stumble home, he was completely wasted. My mother was still in shock from losing him, so her only instinct was to coddle him further. She was always pleading with me to make sure Vali had everything he needed. "He needs you to help him on his school work!" This really just meant he was too busy upchucking all night to do his math problems.

When it became apparent that this was going to be my life for my eternity, I packed up my world and applied for individual independence from my mother and Vali. I knew living in my own condominium outside of Brooksdale Community College a few months before school starts would not be nearly as stressful as living with my family.  I had grown weary from all of the verbal and physical abuse from the relationship with my brother, and I had grown weary of my mother's unwillingness to do anything about him.

To this very day, I am barred from evening dinners with my mother and brother -- far from welcome in what was once my own home. My mother and brother couldn't understand how much their burden on me was keeping me from succeeding. I am not married to the girl to which I was meant to be married, but I know that without my choice to leave, I'd still be doing homework for my brother.

Author's note:

This was an adaptation of part of Sugreeva's story about his history with his brother, Vali. In the Ramayana the great warrior Vali goes into a cave (deemed Cave Creek in my interpretation) to fight a beast and takes a very long time to come out. The challenge of the beast is instead more of a challenge of stamina in my story; he must save the livestock that has been stranded in the creek. The only person to still believe he is alive is his brother. However, because Vali felt abandoned after being left stranded for so long, he basically shuns his brother from their city and ends up taking his wife, too. I did not incorporate any of Rama's intervention in this matter, as my re-telling only covers everything up to Sugreeva's banishment out of the city.

I remember reading about Vali's great strength and how it would make sense if one of the brothers was the brute jock, while the other was the perceptive and intelligent son. I wish I had made more time to flesh out the reemergence of Sugreeva into Vali's life, so that I could change Vali's imminent death at the hands of Rama into something more optimistic.

The picture I chose was made to set up some imagery of the livestock stranded in Cave Creek.

Source:

• Narayan, R. K. (1972) The Ramayana