MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL...

On the 4^th day of August in the year of the Lord, 1974, I found myself seated on a window side in an ordinary II class compartment of Kamrup Express at Howrah station travelling to Cooch

Bihar, the northernmost district of West Bengal. I was going to join the district as a probationer under training. I had a steel trunk and a hold-all of good olden times as my accompaniments and a few rupees in my pocket. For me it was a journey into unknown. Being a northerner, I had never been to this part of the country and my acquaintance with Bengal was limited to my reading of Hindi translations of Sarat Chandra novels, a few Tagore poems and the picture of charming Bengali women in red bordered sarees with a bunch of keys tied to one end of the pallu a la Parineeta (1953) and Biraj Bahu (1954), Hindi films, both directed by Bimal Roy.

An old ramshackle Willys jeep was waiting for me at the New Cooch Bihar railway station. There was someone to receive me-can’t remember who. Immediately on arrival I was informed that I was to present myself before the Superintendent of Police (SP) soon after. Where shall I stay? There was no police guest house and the busy Circuit House having only four rooms couldn't be given on a long term basis. I will be put up in the earmarked house of the Additional SP for the time being as there was no one posted there for sometime past.

I quickly opened my steel trunk, took out my uniform and the leather toilet bag to shave my overnight stubble and take a quick shower to call on the District SP.  As I went to the bathroom, I discovered to my horror that it didn't have a mirror on the wash basin! I didn't carry a mirror either. Having been constantly reminded of OLQs (Officer Like Qualities) at the Academy, it certainly was not a good idea for an All India Service Officer to go out and seek help, wrapped only in a towel with a shaving brush in one hand and a razor in another.   And confounding the matters was another message from the SP that he was waiting to see me before he retired for lunch.

Douglas Adams was an English writer, humourist, and dramatist. Adams is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which originated in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold more than 15 million copies in his lifetime and generated a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. In his book ‘Mostly Harmless’ he observes: “A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of    complete fools.” 

Ingenuity (Ingenium) is the root Latin word for engineering. Ingenuity is the process of applying ideas to solve problems or meet challenges. Here I was ‘faced’ with a very serious never before problem - to shave without a mirror. With the minutes ticking by, my nervousness was increasing exponentially.

And then a fool’s ingenuity came to the forefront.

One of the uniform articles for a police officer is a leather belt. It has a rectangular shimmering

steel buckle with the IPS logo fastened with screws in the middle. The monogram can be unscrewed and removed for polishing purposes. The buckle is so well polished that you can see your image in it though a little distorted due to convex shape of this rectangle. I quickly unscrewed the attachment and kept it aside, took the belt to the bathroom, hung it on the towel grill with the buckle facing me and with disproportionate outlines of my face being visible, I shaved.  Needless to say it literally proved to be such a face saving device!

I had arrived in that district on the 5^th of the month and having paid all my dues as I left the Police Training College, Barrackpore, I was left with very little money to immediately buy a mirror. I had a whole month to survive. I thought to myself: now that I had discovered a way out, the mirror could wait.

Be that as it may, it being such an ‘earth shattering’ event on the very first day of the start of my professional career, I haven’t forgotten that I bought a mirror on receipt of my pay the following month for a royal sum of Rs.6. I prized it as one of my most precious possessions for several years until one day it was found mysteriously smashed to smithereens and lying in one corner of the house. No one confessed to this crime. I was devastated.  There lay shattered the romance of my early days’ financial hardships and a symbol of my coming ‘face to face’ nay almost qualifying for a BPL card. And in the hope that my sad tale shall become a part of my domestic folklore, I must have shared this episode with my children ad nauseum which I would start but never could conclude since they would excuse themselves midway and disappear.  I am still investigating who broke my mirror denying me the pleasure and pride of living in its ‘reflected’ glory.

In Greek mythology, the mathematician Archimedes invented giant mirrors that used the sun to set roman warships afire during an attack on Syracuse in 212 B.C. Narcissus, looking into the water, did not understand that he saw his own reflection, and fell in love with himself, Legend has it that the hero Perseus killed Medusa by using a mirrored shield. And also, the brothers Grimm’s story of Snow-white, in which the wicked queen consults a magic mirror to determine the identity of the most beautiful woman in the world....

Who invented the first mirror?  Our ancestors probably used pools of still water as mirrors for thousands of years. Later, mirrors of polished metal or obsidian (volcanic glass) gave wealthy preeners a more portable view of themselves. Obsidian mirrors from 6,200 BCE were discovered at Catal Huyuk, the ancient city near modern-day Konya, Turkey.  People in Iran used polished copper mirrors at least as early as 4,000 BCE. In the Bible, Isaiah scolds Israelite women who were "haughty and walk with necks outstretched, ogling and mincing as they go..."  He warns them that God will do away with all of their finery - and their brass mirrors!  

The first mirror-makers lived near the city of Sidon, Lebanon, some 2,400 years ago.  Since glass itself likely was invented in Lebanon, it's not too surprising that it was the site of the earliest modern mirrors. The Phoenicians were masters of the Mediterranean trade routes, so this wonderful new trade object quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean world and the Middle East. The Persian emperor Darius the Great, who ruled around 500 BCE, famously surrounded himself with mirrors in his throne room to reflect his glory. 

Ancient people buried their dead with mirrors, believing them to be receptacles for the soul. A richly ornate mirror was found in the tomb of Tutankhamen. It seems that the Indus Valley Civilization or Harappan settlements did not have glass. It was, however, in the three or four centuries before and after the Christian era that Indian glass industry began to gain momentum. Glass-tiles appeared to be in use in India even as early as the third century BC during the reign of Asoka.

Persian glass-makers brought their craftsmanship to India and were engaged in the production of glass dishes and dish covers, spittoons, flat-bottomed vessels, mirrors and other objects like tiles and ear reels. The artistic glass specimens of the Moghul period, when glass industry received royal patronage, show Persian influence.

The Cooch Bihar experience made me to realize that a mirror was such a valuable necessity in our lives. But for me, it was a luxury I couldn't afford for a while. I also learnt that even with a low salary or even when the salary went up manifold, one needed to follow the “Micawber Principle” in life.

Always in debt yet recklessly cheery and blindly optimistic, Mr Micawber is one of Dickens’s most lovable characters. Mr Micawber has given us the famous dictum now known as “The Micawber Principle”:

“My other piece of advice, Copperfield,” said Mr. Micawber, “you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and—and, in short, you are forever floored. As I am!”

Thank you Mr. Micawber, for showing us the ‘mirror’ to a way of life, life of financially secure happiness - at the end of the day.