A single dot on your forehead can tell a thousand stories. And if the world calls you by the name ‘The Funky Bindi Queen’, then there are more layers to the stories.
That little dot can even earn you a mention in the Limca Book of Records. Ahmedabad-based celebrity image consultant and filmmaker Aroona Bhat loves pushing her imagination when it comes to the bindi on her forehead.
Growing up in Mangalore, Aroona had a different tryst with the bindi. Her working professional parents upheld all their conservative values, chiefly among them the importance of that little black dot in the centre of the forehead of their daughters.
The little dot was always there on her forehead, even as she went to school or on holidays. When Bhat and her sister decided not to wear the little black dot, they were subjected to questioning and scrutiny. Their mother was told that she had not brought up her daughters with proper values.
Being the younger of the siblings, Bhat had a streak of defiance. So, in 1993–94, she started to experiment with lines and forms of her bindi. Taking a retro look at her journey, Bhat says, “When I look back, I feel extremely different. My forehead is my canvas. My way of wearing bindi is pushing my creative boundaries. It’s all about being comfortable in my skin. I can safely say that I chose to look beyond the tiny little dot and learnt to experiment with my creativity.”
In 1997, when Bhat moved to Bombay from Mangalore, the girl with the dot on her forehead felt a sense of freedom and lightness. Her forehead became her canvas to experiment.
She says, “The dot gained a vast expanse of space and covered my forehead.” Her bindis also became more colourful because she discovered a box of colour. That was also the time when Bhat started experimenting with other things like the vibhuti (holy ash), which was available in different temples in Mumbai. She also started using lipstick and eyeliners.
Talking about her Mumbai days, she says, “My imagination went wild on some occasions. Once I used the sticky part of a band-aid and stuck that on my forehead and drew lines around it. Bombay was a breath of fresh air and nobody really seemed to mind the designs I had on my forehead or what I drew on my forehead.
“Sometimes I walked around with a wineglass I chose to draw on the forehead, which started to climb towards the sky and cover the expanse of my forehead, and sometimes there would be a little bit of pattern on the sari and make that into a bindi. Sometimes, a pendant became my muse and I had drawn a bit of the pendant on the forehead. It was all about giving wings to imagination.”
But when she returned to Mangalore, to her disappointment she found things were exactly where she had left them. She still remembers the unsavoury comments and the rude things that people would say to her about her bindi.
She says, “I remember one particular incident very, very clearly. I had drawn a horizontal eye on my forehead and I had put tiny little red flowers on the inside to make it look quite pretty, and a friend’s uncle actually walked up to me and said, ‘Have you drawn your vagina on your forehead?’ I was deeply humiliated and I was extremely shocked by that reaction.
“It’s only because my sister and my cousin were with me that day and they were the ones who actually got me out of there without saying a word. I thought about the whole incident when I went back home. I thought about it and I realised I was brave enough to be me and there was something clearly different about me. The horizontal eye design remains one of my favourite basic designs.”
Ask her about her bindi design inspiration as she never repeats a design. She says, “I dig deep within. You can call me a forehead artist. It is all about spontaneity. While doing my bindi, I am totally immersed in the process. I am totally in sync with my inner consciousness. Those 60–80 seconds are very precious to me. Mindfulness is what makes me who I am and that’s reflected in my bindi designs.”
Thanks to social media, now many youngsters have taken an interest in Bhat’s unique way of wearing a bindi. She says with a laugh, “Many times, youngsters walk up to me and say, ‘Oh, we have seen your pics on Instagram.’ Sometimes, my bindi also inspires people to do their artwork. All these interactions give me happiness.”
Bhat feels that the bindi is still gender-centric and 90 percent of the male population have distanced themselves from the bindi. Some people in India think that she is “brutalising the bindi.” However, her bindi evokes interest among many foreigners whenever she goes abroad.
So, how did she manage to find a mention in the Limca Book of Records? She says it is all due to a chance encounter with the editor of the Limca Book of Records. “I never imagined that I would find a mention there. The editor walked up to me and asked, ‘What’s that on your forehead?’ I said, ‘It’s my expression of a bindi,’ and she asked, ‘How long would it take you to do it?’ I replied, ‘Within a minute.’ She double-checked and she said, ‘You draw it yourself?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ She said, ‘You realise you can qualify in the record books?’ and then it happened.”
Bhat debunks all the stereotypes associated with the bindi, like one shouldn’t wear it while wearing denim or a skirt. Bhat laughs and says, “I wear a bindi even while wearing a bikini on the beach.”
For her, being called the Funky Bindi Queen is all about “expressing herself.” She says, “The moment you stop becoming self-conscious and embrace yourself fully, you win the battle. Stereotypes are meant to be fought against. Life is all about being comfortable in your own skin. And that’s what I have been doing all my life.”
And she has a lot to draw from her own life experiences while drawing a design on her forehead.
Deepika Sahu has been a journalist for 29 years and she has worked with some of India’s leading media houses. Right now, she is independently engaged in content creation and curation. Twitter: @menondeepika; Instagram@moodydeepika; Facebook: Deepika Sahu
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Discover @AroonaBhat, the “#FunkyBindiQueen,” who transforms her forehead into a canvas of creativity, earning a spot in the Limca Book of Records. 🌟🖌️ Dive into her journey of defying norms & embracing self-expression! ✨👑💫 #TheIndianSun #Bindihttps://t.co/M1bUrGq3QT
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