Not The Brown Girl With The Red Dot
By: Ranjani Rao
Tags: Race, Community, Identity, Culture, Beyourself

Fifteen years ago, I wrote an essay titled “The girl with the red dot” that was accepted by alternet.org for publication on their website. Through my writing, I was trying to explore my motives for wearing a bright red bindi during my years as a Ph.D. student in Baltimore.

Having grown up in Bombay in a traditional family that valued education, I had been sent to a convent school, a decision taken by my mother, which her mother did not approve of, for the simple reason that school rules forbade me from wearing a bindi.

My orthodox grandmother had strong opinions on a variety of subjects, most of which didn’t agree with my cosmopolitan outlook and free thinking. Not having to wear a bindi to school didn’t bother me one bit, it was actually a relief since it meant one less thing to do on busy school days. I do remember being perversely pleased that my bare forehead vexed my grandmother, since we constantly locked horns on most subjects.

Given my ambivalence about it, why then did I choose to earn the title of “the girl with the red dot” on campus?

Far from home, without any pressure to conform to a particular style of dressing, I had adopted the bindi as part of my new identity in America. Acutely aware of my presence in a new country, amongst people of many races, I noted all the ways in which I was different. Even amidst my Indian peers in the department, I was the youngest married person.

Was it because I was trying to redefine my identity while grappling with all the changes that had transpired in my life in a short time? Did the bindi give me a sense of control over one aspect of my appearance which was different from that of the majority? Did it serve as a link to my former self?

Identity, defined as “exact likeness in nature or qualities”, come from things we inherit within our cells. It shows up in the way we use our bodies, in our speech and mannerisms. The feeling of belonging that arises from similarities that we perceive within our family and the larger community in which we come of age is an intrinsic one and seems pre-ordained, to some extent.

Identity, however, is also defined as the condition of “being oneself and not another”. By moving away from a racially uniform, albeit culturally diverse home environment, I was perhaps trying to recalibrate my place in a new system on many fronts, both within and outside my home.

My bindi was neither a symbol nor a statement. My bindi was as much a part of me as my long black hair that I wore in a single braid, a unique, visible identifier. It was as important to me as the clear contact lens (which I had also taken to wearing in the US) that although invisible to others, was essential for me to function.

The question about the bindi receded to the background when I moved back to India. But the essay gained momentum when it was featured in a college textbook alongside essays by Maya Angelou and Bharti Mukherjee. Recommended across college campuses for freshman composition, a study guide was appended to each essay. Simple but incisive questions prompted the reader to try and understand my background, my motivations and my analysis of the situation. What had come as a natural progression of my thoughts and coalesced into an essay, was a matter of interpretation for students of a different generation, for people who I wouldn’t know but who would try to know me through my words!

Although I had not visualized such an audience when I first wrote the essay, I felt a sense of validation and accomplishment that my words would help connect people by opening a window to understanding. I hoped my message that “even though I look different, my struggle with conformity and identity, is part of the universal human struggle to find our place in this world,’’ would shine through.

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