Lipsticks, Corona and the New Normal

It was a fine sunny morning. The magnificent  Laxmi Idol of Puri’s Jagannath temple had just finished her holy bath. It was time for her ‘sringar’, an half an hour-long breathtakingly beautiful arrangement of decorating the Goddess. Two purohits were her makeup artists. The seamlessly beautiful goddess was given ‘kajal’ which they made from ghee burnt in a small brass ‘pradip’.Her nails were coloured by vermilion diluted in water or oil. Sandalwood, sindoor, flowers, kumkum, perfume all were part of the ‘Sringer’. The last touch up was colouring her lips. To my great surprise, the purohit first drew an outline and then with great sedulous care filled up the space of lips with colour red. While her Narayana enjoyed the company of his siblings, she stood tall, well maintaining her diva image. I was one among those fascinated onlookers who were surprised by the fact that the Mother Goddess starts her day with makeup and lipstick and that too for thousands of years!

The story of Lipstick is very old, as old as the history of this ancient land. Shakuntala, the mother of the great emperor Bharata used to colour her lips by crushing ripe juicy pomegranates. I came across such startling information just before my matriculation examination. And of course, I had meticulously plucked this fruit of knowledge beyond the horizon of my textbooks. Shankar, the prolific Bengali storyteller was the source behind this interesting information.   My Social Studies textbook was quite fat and it became an easy hiding house for ‘outer books’. According to my mother, reading of those just before the exam was no less a criminal offence. Indian Constitution, History of Medieval India many a time had given shelter to Sherlock Holmes, Sarat Chandra Chatterjee or breathless romances of Mills and Boons. I can’t actually get a clue from where I got a typical image of Shakuntala. But whenever the name was uttered, a beautiful young lady with lustrous locks, floral ornaments, a body-hugging knee-length saree with a pitcher in hand walking almost cross-legged came before my eyes. And to my astonishment, the image remains the same even today. Books like  AmarChitrakatha series, Chadmaama or pictures from some new year calendars could be the sources of such stereotyped images of the lady. And I should admit that her image with the scarlet hue on the luscious lips used to create an alluring electric effect in my adolescent mind.

As a small-town girl I find mothers and aunties of the pre-liberalised era somehow carried a puritan stubbornness towards lipstick. Other than some selective days or festivals using lipstick was almost prohibited. The obvious conscious threat was that it would darken the colour of lips. They usually found a lack of innocence in a young school-going girl wearing lipstick. For them, the colouring of lips carried a pinch of ‘over smartness’ with a sense of nubile seductive undercurrent.  As restricted items look more lucrative, I developed an irresistible attraction towards lipstick. Whenever my mother had to attend a marriage party or any other function she used to put on a silk saree, knot a bun and change her ear drops. That’s all. She never used lipstick. And most of the aunties more or less had the same dress code. Even the bride had to choose among a few colours as the market could not offer her myriad options. Despite those limitations, every function had a handful of’ ‘ultramodern’ women with sleeveless blouses and dark colour on their lips. Girls of my age silently admired those ‘stylish’ personalities. There were occasions when one of them could read the admiration in my eyes.I could find a sense of indulgence in her proud and satisfied glance while relishing a young girl’s delighted approval of her beauty. And  I personally knew that one day I would turn on a lady like her and no mother could stop me from colouring my lips. Perhaps what I actually longed for was the sensation called adulthood, a stage of self-reliance where I am free to make my decisions. Maybe my subconscious mind found in lipsticks a symbol,a synonym or an acronym for the special feeling called…  freedom.

Post liberalised mothers and aunties were very different, even the small-town ones. With two Indian beauties winning international beauty pageants in the 90’s, slowly but steadily drew a fine line between the old and the new.  The word ‘makeup’, ‘makeover’ with many of their paraphernalias gradually became a part of the middle class lifestyle. Even the little one knows that lipsticks complete the makeup. The mushroom growth of Beauty Parlours in cities, towns, suburbs and villages with all-female customers washed away the old puritan stubbornness regarding purity and pure beauty.  Mother and daughter exchange tips on how to look good and young. The junior talent hunts on the small screen accustomed to our eyes with children dubbed in loud makeup. The liberalised economy created more options and scopes in selection. As the various brands of sanitary napkins flooded the market so as various beauty products. The first one dramatically changed a girl’s notions and visions regarding herself and her surroundings. . And the second one gave access to a world of beauty, confidence and job opportunities. Usually, the college or university exam papers come with a code number. 401 can be a paper related to Literary Criticism for an English Honours student. But the world of lip colours with numerous codes when decoded offers voyage to a land of romance, passion and aspirations. In the realm of lipsticks, 401 can be a shade slanting towards orange and the designer would like to call it ‘ orchid dust’. Likewise, a red can be ‘Rich Ruby’, ‘ Cinnamon Frost’, ‘ Moonlit wine’, ‘ ‘Blast off’, ‘Heartbreaker ‘ ‘Soul mate’,  so on and on. Buying lipstick is also a thrilling experience. The well dressed smart ladies from different brands will attend you with all their sincere efforts to make you like their products. If someone is a little confused about the colour that suits the skin tone, the confident lady will provide a solution with hundreds of shades. She will put little dots of colours in the customer’s hand for ready reference and prompt selection. Then she will wipe off those with little cream or makeup remover in a cotton. Still there will be a slight touch of colours and a fine aroma which may long for quite a few hours.Though for a short period of time  she is capable of creating an atmosphere of oblivion from household chores or professional uproars and leads to a feelgood narcissist land of beauty and glamour.

COVID 19 straightaway fixes a mask between lips and their colour sticks.  The unbidden intruder puts a question on feminine freedom of choosing colours. For some, It’s not that going to a parlour or wearing colours symbolize the aspiring freedom that the womenfolk cherish. But to some it may stand for a little window to breathe for a while, thus it’s the moment of freedom. Freedom could be colourless, odourless, priceless, textureless But let the women’s world shape it. Let them deliberately fix when and why to select a colour or reject. And I feel it’s an altogether new challenge how they manage to be safe and colourful. The shifting from Old Normal to the New may put forth new connotations of freedom, efficiency and discipline, but that must not look dull and colourless. The shift must not give a feeling, ‘ oh! no! I feel so less than myself.”

This is an authored article by Papri Bhattacharjee.