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Bindaas bindi

You can wear a bindi that twists up your forehead like a snake or one that comes with a shower of Swarovski crystals, discovers DEEPA GANESH.

EVEN FOR the grandest of occasions, it was only a simple dot, or a tiny tilaka that adorned our foreheads, and that too mostly with homemade kajal. Of course, grandmothers, and mothers wore a slightly bigger, a more obvious bindi, in either red or maroon powders, irrespective of the colour of their sari. Powder kumkum probably came in other colours, but middle-class families like ours had to settle for the less exotic, more functional ones.

Gone are those days. With the happy hitching of tradition and technology, the humble bindi has come a long way. Not even by the wildest stretch of one's imagination did one foresee such booming prospects for the bindi industry, even as recent as a decade ago. From being representative of a coy declaration of one's marital and cultural status, the bindi has become a style statement that has even been exported to cool Caucasian circles.

The sticker bindi comes in unbelievable shapes, sizes, colours, and designs, with twirls, twists, and curlicues. Moreover, it now comes with lashings of gold, silver, precious stones, and some even have a Swarovski flourish to them. If you aren't a regular bindi shopper, the staggering collection can overwhelm you.Bindi has its roots in the word bindu (drop) in Sanskrit, and apparently means "the mystic eye of a person". In ancient times, when garlands were an important part of eveningwear of men and women, they painted their foreheads with sandal paste as beautification. Mythology tells you a little more. The vermilion or the sindoor, used for bindis, is supposed to represent shakti (energy), and a symbol of fertility. This is probably why widows are expected to go off-bindi. In many households, women take off their bindi, or wear only a black dot when there is a death in the family.

Interestingly, television has a great role to play in the flourishing bindi industry. With the idiot box taking over the lives of middle-class women, we now have bindis that are named not just after film stars, but also small screen stars. Particularly after the dubious, never-ending brigade of saasumaas, bahuranis, and vamps churned out by Ekta Kapoor's serials. So, along with a Taal bindi, you have a Ramola bindi, a Parvati bindi, and a Saans bindi. It must be noted that villainy of a vamp reflects in the reptilian characteristics of her bindi. So you have one-headed, three-headed, and even five-headed snakes curled on her forehead, depending on how venomous her character is. A forthright, assertive heroine could even wear an arrow for a bindi. In fact, if you happen to search the Net, there is an entire bindi gallery of Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit from the film Devdas.

And of course, there are the tattoos as offshoots of the industry. You could just wear them like a bindi on any part of your body. Just as one attempts to figure out how one should wear these complicated Richie Rich and Ramola bindis. The biggest clientele for these designer bindis comes from the Marwari and Gujarati community. "The locals have also slowly started taking to them," tells a local shopkeeper. . However, the college-going crowd prefers to wear the more intricate, less ornamental `computer' bindis that set off its very eclectic sartorial style. Today, there are hardly any takers for powder kumkum and the dear old liquid bindis anymore. They no longer suit our pace of life perhaps. But ask Chandra Jain who swears by her kumkum powder: "Not that I dislike the sticker bindis, but nothing ever gives me the feeling that the powder does." Chandra believes that powder treats the skin kindly as it has turmeric for its base.

But she and her lot are a minority in the rapidly changing world of fashion. It is time we reconciled to the fact that the young, middle-class, television-watching housewife largely controls the trends in the bindi business. So, why not get a Ramola bindi for a change?

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