Behind Every Bindi: A Story of Struggle | Thursday Tale No. 26

  Cities rarely pause to ask who is keeping up and who is quietly falling behind. They move, efficient, dazzling, and indifferent, while lives reshape themselves in the margins. What we notice in passing is often just a surface, a face, a gesture, a small detail we never return to. Yet behind such fleeting impressions are stories negotiating dignity, survival, and choice in ways that rarely announce themselves. This is one such story of how a life bends, adapts, and continues, even when it drifts far from what it once imagined.

Behind Every Bindi

Photograph by Darshak Pandya on Pexels.

Nanda was a tall, dusky, beautiful twenty-three-year-old, well-educated, comfortably employed, independent woman living in the city of dreams.

Like any other young adult in the city, Nanda was working relentlessly and saving for her dreams.

One fine day, she got laid off.

  Being the go-getter that she was, Nanda immediately started seeking a suitable job. She logged into all possible employment websites, clicked “easy apply” a hundred times, and scanned through every page of the newspaper's classifieds.

  A week passed, but she got no call-backs.

  Still hopeful, she printed fifty copies of her resume from her savings, attached application letters, sealed them in envelopes, and sent them in all directions of possibilities.

  But a week became a month, and a month became five; she still got no response from anywhere.

  Saddened, but still faintly hopeful, she tried rationalising why she might have not gotten a single call for an interview. She pondered upon her qualification, capabilities, her technical and soft skills, her work experience, and her accolades. But she could find little to no gap in any of them. In fact, she remembered how her professor had highlighted how Nanda’s resume was the sample for a perfect resume. She had mentioned how Nanda would be a perfect candidate and an irreplaceable employee to the workplace that hires her. The professor’s observations were true, until recently. Now Nanda was just another piece of perfectly curated and formatted profile floating among millions of other suitable, capable, neatly presented professionals.

  Five months became nine.

  By then, Nanda's savings became increasingly diluted. Initially, her expenses were limited and the depletion was slow. But then inflation hit, and her financial situation worsened at a faster pace.

  Nanda would withdraw ₹500 to buy basic essentials like milk, bread, and eggs, and she would return home with only a few rupee notes tucked in her palm along with the handle of the polythene bag.

  So Nanda began seeking a job frantically. She called many places enquiring about vacancies, only to be politely told that there weren't any, or that she shall hear back soon. But the “soon” was indefinite and infinite.

  One day, she was called for an interview. Nanda travelled three hours to the office and was returning home. Nanda boarded the crowded local train and found herself a fourth seat. Nanda generally did not prefer taking the fourth seat, but her body was giving up, and she needed a little support, even if it was a space as small as the 2-inch edge of a train seat.

  A few stops and a few deboarding passengers later, Nanda finally got to sit by the window. A blistering breeze gushing through the window, and the overhead fan spewing more heat than ventilation, made her drowsy. Nanda allowed her head to take support against the side wall of the train.

  The heat from around, and the heat from within, pulled her into a hypnagogic sleep.

  In the depth of the slumber, her noisy mind, in harmony with the quarrel happening on the other end of the train, brought to her the face of the interviewers. She saw fragments of their shameless casual expression when they disclosed compensation of ₹5,000 for the 9–5 job. She heard echoes of their most unusual questions. Nanda heard a woman’s call, “Bees ka ek, pachas ka theen,” grow louder as it approached her, and fade away in the direction of the quarrel. She saw a series of overdue electricity bills, her exhausting bank balance, a distant war, a paper boat sogging and sailing away. She saw her friend Anil waving at her. As this state of mind rapidly consumed her, Nanda’s eyes suddenly opened, her palms sweating and her body spewing heat.

  Nanda’s confused eyes were immediately caught by the big red oval velvet bindi of a woman who had just alighted the train. The woman was in her mid-thirties. She wore a faded floral chiffon saree, loosely draped around her body. Her saree had grime and dirt, as much as her olive green bag. Nanda saw the woman sit by a metal bench on the platform floor. Nanda wondered why those women never sat on the bench.

  As the train slowly pulled away, Nanda saw a gold nath clinging to the woman’s nose. She saw the woman adjust the almost see-through pallu of her saree, unavailingly covering her bosom. She saw a few notes of hundreds and tens—probably her collection for the day—tucked in her blouse.

  The woman faded out of sight. Nanda shut her eyes and returned to her sleep.

  About a year after her unemployment, and many unrewarding interviews later, Nanda decided to seek other job roles like tele-calling, typewriting, copywriting, and data entry.

  Through this channel, Nanda received a job offer. InfoDora, a tech company situated in Bangalore, required someone ambitious and positive-spirited as her for the remote position of Chief Copy Writer. They were willing to pay her handsomely, but only on two conditions: she should stick around for at least six months and pay a security deposit of ₹10,000 after onboarding if she were selected.

  Despite being sceptical, Nanda decided to give it a shot and cleared all three rounds of interviews. She signed the contract, received the onboarding package—her employment ID, an InfoDora diary, pen, mug, a few stationery items, and documents in an InfoDora bag—and paid the fee.

  After the payment, Nanda was left with only ₹4,263.2, but she tried remaining calm because she was going to earn more soon.

  The next day, Nanda logged in to her ERP and email, but she couldn’t pass through. She tried emailing the technical head, but his email was unavailable. She tried calling the manager, but his contact number was invalid.

  Nanda immediately realised what might have happened, but she was too afraid and ashamed to spell it out. A few more calls, and a hopeless police complaint later, Nanda collapsed onto her floor and wept till she forgot who she was.

  The next morning, Nanda began again. She had no time to wallow in sorrow. She had to do something to stay afloat, even if it required her to change her approach. So her eyes began lingering in every direction of opportunity.

  “Shall I try housekeeping?”

  “Ma’am, we are sorry. You are overqualified.”

  “Shall I try tailoring?”

  “The tailor machine costs ₹8,950.”

  “Shall I ask Mona didi to give me some maal? I can certainly trim off threads of mass-produced clothes, stitch buttons, and surely put a few zippers together.”

  But Mona didi gate-kept the possibility.

  So Nanda’s eyes continued searching.

  One afternoon, when Nanda fell asleep thinking of all the prospects of earning, Nanda saw the image of the woman from the train sitting on the platform, wearing the same saree. As her mind’s eye traced up her pallu, and the rupee notes, and the gold nath to look for her bindi, Nanda saw her own face in place of the woman’s. Startled, Nanda opened her eyes.

  Nanda was disgusted by her thought. She hated her mind. For a few days, the image continued disturbing her. But gradually, the discomfort dissolved, and silently the possibilities of the profession grew onto her.

  The woman’s profession, although ill-suited for an educated woman like her, required only limited resources. It was also the most practical prospect. She was young, agile, and strategic, and she had just enough money for the initial investment. She was aware of what “char log” would say, but she knew that they would say it anyway. Also, Nanda knew that if she chose, she could play it on her own terms. She could wear a frock and jeans instead of a saree. She could also decide when, where, and whom to cater to. But the final reason that set her up on the pursuit was her landlord’s call demanding timely rent. Nanda knew that she had to overcome shame either way; and she chose the self-reliant one.

  So within a few days, despite spiralling self-doubt and occasional cold feet, Nanda determined her potential customers and her territory of sales. She scraped off her bank account, wandered down the narrow streets of the city, connected with a few dealers, and made a few purchases. She also bribed a few local railway police before she set out on her new venture.

  On the first day, Nanda pulled on her jeans and a short kurta. She pulled her hair in a neat ponytail and put on a tiny black bindi. When she looked in the mirror, she saw everything of the woman and nothing of her all at once.

  Nanda picked up her bag and boarded the train. In the twenty-three years of travelling by train, this was the first time she was someone other than a regular passenger. It felt odd.

  Nanda felt herself in the presence of hundreds of women engrossed in watching reels, texting someone, touching up their makeup, combing their hair, munching on some snacks, reading a book, chit-chatting, or dozing off. Until a day before, she herself was one of the many women; today, she was on the other side. Realising this made her feel like thousands of moths were fluttering out of her stomach and tearing apart her clothes. Nanda felt like dropping everything and running away. But she couldn't, not after spending three thousand. Nanda had to cross the river, face her discomfort, and overcome the shame. So she swallowed the last moth crawling out of her throat, closed her eyes briefly, and inhaled. She remembered the gold nath, the rupee notes tucked in the blouse, the ease with which the woman had existed that day.

  Nanda exhaled, unzipped her olive green bag, drew out her merchandise—earrings—and in a faint voice characteristic to newbies in the field cried, “Bees ka ek, pachas ka theen.”

- Mercy Rebonica