Rakhi wishes
In most Indian families the cousins raised in the same summers are siblings in every practical sense. Rakhi covers them too, and these six are written for that relationship specifically.
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Continue writing opens that message in the card with the words already in it, so all that is left is to change a word and send it. The last message is the longest of the six, and it is the only one you have to copy across yourself.
Happy Rakhi. Cousin on paper, sibling in every way that ever counted. All those years of being dumped in the same house every summer did the job that growing up together does, and it has held. Hope this year treats you well from start to finish.
Continue writing with message 1Happy Raksha Bandhan. We only see each other at weddings now, which isn't enough and is mostly my fault. Thank you for being the one who never once reported me to anybody. Wishing you a good year, and a proper sit-down catch-up somewhere in it.
Continue writing with message 2Happy Rakhi. There's a whole set of things only you remember, because you were there for all of them and nobody else was. Thank you for keeping them. Have a good day today, and take an extra sweet on my behalf while you're at it.
Continue writing with message 3Happy Rakhi. The family tree says cousin, twenty years of shared trouble says otherwise, and I'm going with the trouble. Consider the thread tied and the sweets on your account this year, since I claimed them last time and you never noticed.
Continue writing with message 4Happy Raksha Bandhan. Those summers at Nani's house were the terrace at night, no fan, and the two of us awake long after everyone had given up on us. Distance and paperwork aside, you were always a sibling. Missing the noise of that house.
Continue writing with message 5Happy Raksha Bandhan. Cousins is what the family tree says, but a childhood of the same summers, the same terrace and the same trouble says something a good deal closer than that. We only see each other at weddings now and it isn't enough. Consider the thread tied from here, and let's fix that part this year.
Claim the relationship out loud. The thing worth saying to a cousin is that you consider them a sibling — it is not obvious to them, families being what they are, and it is the sentence that makes the card land rather than read as a courtesy.
Anchor it in one shared place. The summers at Nani's, the wedding you both escaped from, the terrace in the old house. Cousin relationships live in specific locations, and naming one does more than any amount of warmth.
Family by paperwork, siblings by summer. Worth a card either way.
Write the Rakhi cardIt arrives as a sealed envelope they open on their phone.