Red Sindoor

She watched in awe as her mother got ready. Ma first draped a white mul cotton saree with scarlet borders. She parted her dark lustrous hair in the middle, combed it and tied a tight plait, covering it with the fragrant jasmine flowers. She then picked up the white and red bangles and wore a pair on each wrist. Ma picked up her small gold chain and wore it around her neck. She picked up the tiny silver kajal Dani (kohl box) and applied dark kohl to her eyes with her dainty delicate ring finger. The kohl made her mother's hazel eyes stand out. Last, Ma picked up the tiny stick, that looked like a toothpick and opened the silver sindoor Dani and began her favourite part of the sola Shringar. Her ma deftly applied the sindoor, filling the partition in her long dark hair, and shaping it with the help of the tiny stick. She then dipped her ring finger in the sindoor Dani and rolled the tip of the finger on her forehead, right between her brows, expertly making the perfect circle. As she got ready, Ma looked at her own reflection and smiled. She looked at her daughter watching her in awe. She playfully applied a little red dot on her daughter's forehead. "Run along now. Daddy will be here for the night." Though her mother smiled at her as she said that, the little girl could sense a melancholic pain in her mother's voice. But she ran out to play with her friends. 

Twenty-three years later, she stood in front of the mirror, getting dressed for the party, as her husband sat on the bed looking at her with love and fondness. Just as she was applying sindoor in the partition of her hair, a new habit, since she had recently gotten married, she stopped for a second, travelling back in time to that day. She remembered her mother's voice saying "Run along now. Daddy will be here for the night". As she ran out, a new 'Daddy' entered their room in the little chawl in Kamathipura (red-light district of Mumbai). All grown up, and married to a respectable man, she now understood why her mother looked melancholy every evening when she applied sindoor to her forehead. Her mother had traded her body, her youth, so her daughter could rightfully apply sindoor as a sign of being an officially married woman.