Sometimes A Dot Is More Than Just A Dot

SAN FRANCISCO -- Back in the eighties, it was kind of tough being Indian in America, especially on the east coast. There I was, a recent immigrant and a student at Boston University, displaying my ethnicity on my forehead and in the outfits I wore. That, of course, branded me as “fresh off the boat,” and made most people assume that I probably didn’t speak English too well, if at all.

The Indian women I befriended in my first weeks in Boston told me they had years ago abandoned the practice of wearing the dot, except on special occasions, because it drew too much attention to themselves. Besides, they said, they were tired of explaining its symbolism.

That of course made me more determined than ever to wear it. So when a classmate walked up to me one day when I was strolling down Commonwealth Avenue, stared at my forehead, looked away, then stared at it again, I braced myself.

“What a beautiful day,” he said, stating the obvious, which I had concluded at the time most Bostonians liked to do. Then, without wasting any more time in small talk, he asked me what the dot signified.

I launched into a well-rehearsed explanation. I told him how the dot was meant to remind people about the third eye, the eye of wisdom, the higher state of consciousness. I told him how the entire body emanates energy in the form of micro-magnetic waves, the spot between the eyebrows more so than any other, and that wearing the dot checked energy loss. I told him that in India, married Hindu women wore vermilion dots to let men know they have been taken, something like the wedding bands on the fingers of Christians. In my case, I told him, looking him straight in the eye, I wore it because it made my face look less barren.

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