Bindi!

"Why don't you have a jewel carved in your forehead?"

The little girl who asked me that was hardly six, and she knew I was from India. I was six, too, beginning first grade, and it was years before trendy tattoos became popular. I stared at the girl a moment, trying to determine whether she was serious or not. She was! A jewel carved in my head was, first of all, likely to hurt, and second, it didn't sound very attractive. "Ouch!" was my reaction.

For many mornings, I had seen my mother apply her bindi. She had her own style, using the round end of a lipstick cap. She would first dip the cap in petroleum jelly and then dip it in red powder. Finally, she carefully pressed the cap between her eyes, leaving a red powder dot on her forehead. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and I couldn't wait to do the same thing. Sometimes, to make me happy, she'd use an eyeliner stick to apply a tiny black dot on my forehead. I'd skip away satisfied, waiting patiently until I could wear a big red one.

Hindus have adorned their bodies with bindis for thousands of years. Not that long ago, a bindi, which is also known as a tilak, was nothing more than ground vermilion powder applied to the forehead. It was a sign that a woman was married--like wearing a wedding ring. Vermilion powder was made from a mix of mercury and sulfur, a combination thought to have a cooling effect--very helpful in a warm country like India. In fact, men often wore tilaks made from sandalwood paste, also to make them feel cool.

Some people think that the tradition of wearing bindis began with the ancient ritual of the bridegroom applying his blood to his wife's forehead during the wedding ceremony. Others believed that the area between the eyebrows is the spot where there is a third eye--a point of hidden energy and wisdom. Wearing a bindi on this spot helps focus concentration and brings happiness and good fortune.

No matter what its origins were, a bindi was always worn with pride, and served as a gentle reminder to others to respect a married woman. Red, the color of life-giving blood and an important color in the Hindu religion, was always used for bindis.

In the early twentieth century, bindis became more of a fashion statement. Instead of wearing only round red bindis, married and unmarried women in India started wearing bindis of different sizes and shapes on their foreheads. Today, women wear fashion stickers--decorated with beads, crystals, sequins, or glitter--on their foreheads to match what they are wearing.

Even though the jewel in the forehead isn't far from the truth, I still don't have one carved into my head, and nobody I know does either. But I do wear stickers from time to time. I look in the mirror and smile as I think about my beautiful mother and the days she painted a black dot on my forehead.