Catch My Point

Catch My Point

 

                         --  - M Mrithika Santhoshin

           The dot or point or a small particle located between the eyebrows upon the forehead is called as bindu, bindi, tikka, bottu, pottu, tilak or tilakam. There are enough theories explaining the significance of keeping a bindi. Spiritually, it protects the third eye or the ajna chakra helping the person to have balance and so on. Scientifically, it serves the women with a calming down effect, they say.

 

        Whereas, my approach to this tradition of wearing the bindi is purely psychological. As the term suggests, bindu means a point. I shall interpret this point as "focal point" which is defined as the centre of interest or activity.

        Have you ever wondered why bindi was not square or triangle, but round in shape? Do you think our ancestors who built huge temples withstanding centuries of calamities would not have tried other designs to paint ladies’ forehead? Clearly, it is a choice. The country so rich in art and artisans chose to design the bindi for its women to be simply round in shape. Because they know everything important in this world is actually round! Ahem, I didn’t mean just the fat girls who made history; but the sun, the moon and the earth we live and die in, are circular by design. That’s why it’s called the round table conference and not a rectangular table conference. Hence, a circle is a powerful curve. Take atom for example: electrons and neutrons don't go zigzag, okay? When people talk of karma it is said that “whatever goes round comes back”.

                As a child or even now when we travel in the night, we look up to the sky and not take our eyes off the moon. It doesn't exhaust us infact. And at day we are drawn to the beautiful sun as we climb down a mountain. This is why universally, all traffic signal lights glow in a round shape. Because, it easily draws a humans' attention. Similarly, the custom of wearing a red dot on the forehead by the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist women is indeed a glorious tradition. The secret behind adorning the female faces with bindi is, our ancestors wanted a focal point to be marked on a woman who carries enough of beauty in various places of her body to distract a normal person with

       . Imagine the height of wisdom of the Hindus in India, Pakistan, Srilanka and Nepal that thought of drawing a red point on a woman's face! During the times where fabric wasn't even invented, how easy it would have been for the eyes of men to roam astray over any female figure! From the sculptures and paintings and from literature we understand that women of those days before being draped in fabric covered their regions only with jewels made of gold, silver, metal, wood and leaves. And what a matter of pride it is to realize that when people from various civilization or religion were busy thinking of saving the beauty of their ladies, body-wrapping the females to avoid attraction from strangers, our chivalrous men had just given her a weightless dot, to guard her entire self.

          These days, modern women wear t-shirts with logos saying my face is over there - an arrow pointing upwards, or literally scream "talk to my face" etc. While the easiest ancient remedy to control one's view was by simply keeping a bindi, the red point which catches one’s attention leading his eyes to a woman’s face!

           It’s not merely a fashion statement, but a thoughtful practice. It is nothing antifeministic at all. On a lighter side, one can notice men listening to their moms who keep bigger bindi than his wife. lol. On a serious note, this is why in Hindu marriages, kumkum or sindhoori is as important as it denotes that "the one you are looking at is from now on, mine".

            Even if a woman is naked wears a bindi on her forehead, the first thing a man would notice (before his eyes go on further) will for sure be her face, while it is not the same to happen for a woman who is decently dressed! Practically to speak about my most favourite costume burqa, yashmak - a veil concealing all of the face except the eyes was required additionally to the invention of purdah. Actually our forefathers believed that it is easy to divert one’s focus by adding a point than shielding the treasure by hiding it.

              In short, a modest woman is not complete(ly covered) until she keeps a bindi.

 

   - M Mrithika Santhoshini M.A

         Coimbatore