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Rakhi is a festival of the bond between the brother and sister, more popularly known as raksha Bandhan. This festival is been
followed since ages wherin the sister ties rakhi on the wrist of the brother seeking for protection.
History has it that many princess have tied rakhi to emperors of subordinate kingdom seeking for protection of their province from enemies. Many of our movies carry a theme of
rakhi signifying the bond between the brother and sister.
The sister visits the brother with rakhi in a nicely decorated plate containing sweets,
a lamp, kumkum, rice and a dry coconut. After doing arthi and applying tilak on the brother's forehead offering him sweets, ties the rakhi on the wrist, thereafter handing over the coconut. The brother in return ushers
gifts either in cash or kind. This is the tradition followed in the Rajasthani community.
Special sweets like ghevar, all the sweet shops have heavy orders for this sweet. A lot of film songs have 
been inspired on rakhi and sister & brother relationship like "Bhai Meri Rakhi ka Bandan Nibhana", "Behna ne bhai ki kalai pe pyar bandha hai", "rangberangi rakhi aye
behna", "Bhai meri rakhi ko rakhna sambal ke", "meri pyari behniya banegi dulhaniya" etc are just a few of them.
The brahmins who perform weddings also carry a lot of rakhi's in their bag and go to all their clients and tie rakhi to the pen, weighing scale, scissors
reason being that the wrist is filled with too many rakhi's. This is a tradition that has been followed not only among brother sisters who are related by blood but even by all those brothers who have desires to having
a sister and vice versa, this relationship is called a Dharam Bhai or Dharam Behan.
If the sister is staying away from the brothers she sends rakhi by post.
The little ones are also excited and love to flaunt their rakhis to school. Keeping the tastes of present day rakhis have started coming in all kinds of sizes and patterns. Rakhis of pure gold and pure silver
are also available.
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