Yashvi Aggarwal
2nd Year

This is a message for all the elder siblings out there: kindly don’t put so much pressure on yourself to set a good example for your younger siblings.

As an older sibling, I can vouch that whenever I see my younger siblings, the first thing that comes to mind is how proud I am of them. It’s just like being their mother, but slightly different. The good part is that I get to be their friend too and share their secrets, which they are too afraid to tell our parents. I get to share their hobbies. I get to scold them (hehe) and also stop my parents from scolding them (playing good cop, the bad cop always works). I get to be older than them and their age at the same time.

Real talk, I almost always feel like I’ve let them down as an older sibling. The thoughts that ‘you should’ve been more polite the last time’, ‘it’s your fault they are angry’, and ‘you caused the fight’, are pretty constant. Whenever I see them, I see how perfect they are and how flawed I am. Whenever I see them, I see how pure and stained I am. Whenever I see them, I see the shine in their child-like eyes and how dull I am. It feels wrong to be the older sister because they deserve a better one.

When someone used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer would be a doctor, teacher, astronaut, lawyer, practically any new profession I could find. But now, within that answer, I manage to squeeze in ‘being a good elder sibling’. I used to be irritated at their sight and now yearn to hug them, even once. All those wholesome sibling reels do nothing but bring a tear to my eyes.

It’s weird, isn’t it? We spend so much of our time chasing a better future that when we do get time, we find ourselves drifting away from all those people we were securing a better future for. My brother and sister—yes,  I’ve got two siblings, they’re too young to understand the importance of time, the time that we spend together. When I come back home, I realize how much they’ve grown and how much time I have lost. I realize that life doesn’t stop. Even when I come back, I find everyone busy with their own lives, and the noise too is loud for anyone, including me, to hear the voice that wants to spend some time together. I wish I could go back to my childhood but that’s not possible. So I’ll try to do what’s possible. Try to spend ten more minutes than before every day. Maybe by the end of these two months, they’ll have some good memories.