A College friend of my mother’s once told me “I remember Shikha, that girl in the bindi.”

My mum, who grew up in Bombay, began wearing bindis in school. Because she started wearing saris in school. Because “I had very hairy legs and wanted to cover them up”. Necessity is the mother of fashion. Those days bindis meant kumkum. For a ‘modern’ touch, some people used to make a little gola with lipstick. “Then a brand called Shringar bindi came in the market so I began wearing a black bindi.” (Oh, that carousel of multi-coloured Shringar wet bindi. I especially remember their electric blue). The reason her black bindi stood out in her Delhi college, was because “in the North mostly only married women wore bindis.”