My mother in law and many other aged women in southern India think that a husband's life is stuck to the bindi ( a sticker) that his wife wears on her forehead. Bindi is a traditional thing and is considered a symbol of marital relics. Young women are forced to wear this red sticker on their forehead always.
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They also teach their son's that the durability of the stickers adhesive determines their life. My mouther in law would look at me with raised eyebrows when my sticker would fall off after a night's sleep and I would not consider looking into the mirror first in the day. She started telling her son how my sticker could kill him and he suggested me to put on a paint that would stay longer.
I was so pissed with this behaviour of theirs that one day inside our bedroom in the absence of his mother I gave him a pep talk. I told him that if stickers determined his life, then why did his father expire when his mother wears her sticker 247 all round the year. She still wears it 247 even when his dad has expired 20 years ago. Will wearing the sticker with full dedication bring him back?
Well, the red sticker and mangalsutra ( the black beaded chain) are considered as a symbol of marriage for a girl. In olden days, girls were married off young and one could never make out if the girl is married or not and for that reason these symbols were created to ensure that no man hits on a married woman. Things are different now. Women are educated and empowered. They know what they are doing and they also know how to keep themselves safe. I do wear that red sticker to please my mother in law for I failed at changing her thinking, but I often tease my husband saying I would pull off my sticker and kill him anytime I desire.
