Sindoor khela

Ouch! Reeks of irony, especially when played by educated and financially independent women of today, does it not? How can compulsion be fun?

Sindoor or vermilion (for my non-Indian friends) is the traditional red powder or vermilion, conventionally a must-wear for Hindu married women, who smear it along the mid parting of their hair. A sindoored woman carries the signal that she is off-limits to any other man, because she is already possessed by one of the species. Not wearing sindoor implies either widowhood or a clumsy divorce or plain Jane spinsterhood. Thus a significant part of the Hindu wedding ritual, smearing sindoor on the bride’s head is widely celebrated as sacred - and photographed all over the world. We have heavily dramatized Bollywood and Tollywood flicks based purely on the virtue of sindoor. We have rural enactments called Jatraa in West Bengal that have staged theatrical portrayal of sindoory yarns and its importance in a woman’s life. 

All in a very streamlined manner, designating the wife as “marked” for life to a single man – you like it or not.

So now you get the picture, right?

If you are owned, and are willing to flaunt the legality of your owned-ness as a red blotch on your forehead, you are a good woman. And you are saved. Period.

Now, the tricky part of it rests with women like me. I do not belong to any women’s lobby or any activist club; neither do I endorse feminism just for the sake of being fashionably progressive. I live in an unequal society and I know it.  I try my best to remain gender-neutral in all my judgments – as far as possible.

I see my single female friends being harassed with the perennial question: “When are you getting married?” I see my friends, who have been separated from their spouses being asked on a loop: “So did you find someone right this time?”

And it somewhere disgusts me that to a large part of my society, marriage still marks the lot that would guarantee perpetual bliss. The truth in some cases is far from that, I have seen. That again, is a different issue altogether. Many of my friends have chosen to remain single, mostly because they want it that way. Similarly I have friends who have settled down in matrimony (arranged very properly by dutiful parents via Shaadi.com or Bharatmatrimony.com or Anandabajaar Patro-Patri), even after a PhD in Women’s Studies, which involves intense research into women’s rights and suffrage, social constructs of femininity, the politics of feminist ideology, etc. And study or no study, your day to day life will show you evidence of violence against women, sexual harassment at the workplace, gender inequality among siblings. But then all this has nothing to do with sindoor.

I digress.

What I am trying to say is marriage should be a matter of choice. And so should the wearing of sindoor. Do you agree?

Being brought up on heavy doses of theories on women’s rights; having read bits of "feminist critique”, "gynocriticism", and “gender theory”; having explored my own world in the light of my readings of various feminists; and having lived my life as a woman in a man’s world, I find “sindoor” very demeaning to my existence. As a result, I do not use it as a mark of my own marital status.

But I do find it odd that I land up every year on Dashami at my local Puja pandal to take part in the Sindoor Khela.

I can almost see you snigger at my hypocrisy.

What is Sindoor khela then? And why do I find such stupid satisfaction in playing a crimson buffoon with other women similarly marked as me on a special day of the year? 

Sindoor khela is a ritual of playing with vermilion to mark the farewell to Goddess Durga at the end of a six day long festivity. I am not sure if the custom dates back to pre-colonial times but perhaps the zamindars (rich land-owners) of the old Bengal had ushered in the practice to promote harmony among the women folk of their household.

Housewives proverbially attributed with cantankerous and ill-tempered rivalries had to be tamed into a workable camaraderie. Thus came the annual vermilion game, where women would touch each other’s forehead and cheeks lovingly with sindoor. And stay in peaceful touch for a year.

Then would follow stuffing sweets into each other’s mouths. They would embrace each other as another year of wait for the Puja started. All in good spirit, I tell you.

This may be the history behind Sindoor Khela. But what is the current significance behind the ritual for me? Nothing much really.

I am not overtly religious. But I still go for this annual game with as much zeal as I would go for Holi, the festival of colors. The only difference here is the single color of choice. Red, it is.

I know very few women of my society. I pass so many of them on my way out to work. I see so many faces rushing out to drop their children off to school, some running to catch the metro for work, some again whooshing me past in sedans of all brands. I know a few names. I am forewarned, some are querulous, some are slander-mongers, so beware! 

And yes, though I am not paying much heed to these warnings, I am wary of unmatched wave-lengths, of disconnected thoughts, of unaligned tongues. I am a loner most part of the year, and I’d rather savor my own company than any other unsavory ones.

But every year, I am proven wrong. I see so many gorgeous women – by their own rights liberated Maa Duggas. I find one with a nippy wit. Another quiet observant one, who enjoys conversations in silence. I see an energetic muse, quick to the beat of the dhaakis – never needing any encouragement to get up and dance – and that too after she has done all her household chores, taken care of children and ageing parents-in-law. I find a woman, who loves to be called “didi” and actually fits the bill quite nice. Another with a helping hand. I see women rising up at the crack of the dawn, to prepare for the Pujas and retiring past midnight after order is restored. 

Gossip, oh yes they do it with fondness. But what is girl bonding without some malice-free innocuous gupshup? That just adds the color to their faces, the twinkle to their eyes. The necessary wax to seal in the honey within. The busy bees. So lovable, all of them.

They are the reasons why I so eagerly wait for the ritual. I get to know a new person every year. Maybe not just too well. But who ever claimed to know it all anyway? I get hugged, embraced, sometimes sucked into a vortex of warmth. I connect, even so in a transient bond. Then again, aren't all bonds just that? Bidding time until they move on to newer relationships.

And our ritual is not just for married women. Even men play at it. You see shy guys trying at first to hide from the onslaught of the Lady Scarlets. Defeated, the hapless ruby red men retaliate sometimes, with handfuls of sindoor themselves. So it is a miniature Holi for all you care. People come together. We get photographed. Superficial, you say? You bet it is. 

But as long as I am not expected to wear sindoor all year round (except as a cosmetic that goes well with a red sari just as red lipstick would) I am willing to go the superficial way.

And all the way it is!

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