18 pages • 36 minutes read
Amit MajmudarDothead
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Bindi
The colored mark that some women from South and Southeast Asia (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Malaysia, and a few other countries) wear in the center of the forehead is called a bindi, which means “point” or “particle” in Sanskrit, an ancient language in which the Hindu sacred texts and classical Indian poetry are written. In modern times, bindis in various colors and shapes have become a popular form of body adornment. Some people might wear it as a sign of good luck before an exam or a job interview. However, the traditional bindi is a centuries-old custom in the Hindu and Jain religions, often related to the woman’s marital status. The custom varies from country to country, and in some places the mark has other names. Married women typically wear a red bindi, usually made of sandalwood paste, which symbolizes prosperity and the wife’s position as its family guardian. If a woman is widowed, she abandons the red bindi or replaces it with a black one. Historically, the bindi was also worn by men in royal and priestly families as a symbol of wisdom. Beyond its connection with marriage, the bindi represents the so-called “Third Eye” or spiritual perception beyond ordinary sight.
Third Eye
In several spiritual traditions, the third eye (sometimes called the mind’s eye or inner eye) symbolizes a gate to a higher level of consciousness. The belief is that, in addition to the two eyes with which we observe the external world, all people also possess a third eye, which focuses on the internal life of religious faith and spiritual enlightenment. Both Hinduism and Buddhism hold that the third eye is positioned in the middle of the forehead, slightly above the place where eyebrows meet, the traditional location of the bindi. Some believe that an unusually developed third eye might cause religious visions or even the ability to see the future. The third eye is also one of the seven chakras, centers of energy in the human body that correspond to specific nerve bundles and internal organs. They are important in traditional Hindu and Buddhist meditative and healing practices. Most significantly for Majmudar’s poem, the third eye enables people to see beyond their own biases and the surface of things, and thus achieve a truer and more balanced vision of life. The speaker wishes he could explain to his friends that his mother’s bindi represents her belief in such spiritual wisdom (Lines 5-7).
Nataraja
Nataraja is one of the manifestations of Shiva, a principal deity in Hinduism. Because Shiva has many powers and functions, Hindu religious art depicts him in a variety of ways that emphasize his multiple characteristics, both benevolent and destructive. In Sanskrit, Nata means “dance” or “drama” and Raja means “king” or “lord.” Thus, Nataraja is a representation of Shiva as a “Lord of Dance” or the divine dancer. In many ancient religions, dance was a ritual inducing a state of ecstasy through which one could come closer to the divine. Nataraja dances within a circle of flames, which symbolizes the cycle of life, both its joys and its dangers, both creation and destruction that alternate and complement each other. Although he dances amid cosmic turmoil, he looks calm and wears a slight smile, embodying his confidence and self-control. His face also features the third eye on his forehead, a sign of wisdom. In some depictions, Nataraja dances on top of a demonic dwarf, who represents evil and ignorance. His function as the destroyer of ignorance is invoked in the final image on Majmudar’s poem, when the speaker imagines his third eye melting his friends’ uninformed prejudice.
