When I was nine years old, I stared into the mirror on my parents’ cupboard – the one I had adorned with stickers of fruits (among which I remember only the custard apple sticker), licked my lips, and committed that moment to memory. It was an experiment. I wanted to see if it was possible to remember anything forever, especially something so mundane as staring at your nine-year-old self in a mirror and licking your lips. Seventeen years later, every once in a while, I still remember that late afternoon sun dripping through our ivory curtains in our apartment in Dubai where I stared into a mirror and committed the moment to memory.

In the past seventeen years, I have been the proud owner of several mirrors. The one on the steel almirah in my home in Kerala that held all my secrets has always seen a sinister face. The locker in the almirah has held my personal diary, knick-knacks I picked up on the roads, memories of a teenage I have long stopped cherishing, hopes to be a writer, and the sepia-toned Christmas cards from friends long lost. Every time I’ve looked at that mirror, I have stared at myself in defiance – secrecy, resolve, and completely, truly mine. On days my secrets shattered along with my young heart, I would stare into that mirror and promise myself strength through tear filled eyes. Today, the mirror holds more secrets than the almirah does; it has seen my soul and kept it close. A teenage best friend I haven’t spoken to in years but with love for me as dear as ever.

The tiny mirror in my room number 324 of our campus’ only girls’ hostel hardly ever saw all of me. I was a crumpled piece of paper, the mirror a guardian I only glanced at and never shared stories with. The few glances it saw peeking through a million tiny things that occupied my wall shelf could be summarized as: my hair – a bird’s nest, my eyes – drowsy from days spent wandering with hardly any sleep yet filled with youthful energy, my clothes – too unremarkable. And yet, some nights when I washed my hair and liberated my curls, I would dust out the mirror and my forgotten eyeliner. In ode of my high school self, I would wear the kohl around my eyes in lines that reflected the perfection of my determination than the tremors of self-doubt. Liquid eyeliners need a practiced hand and even after several years I feel proud of the smooth strokes I can achieve. I adorn my forehead with a small black pottu (bindi) and rummage through knick-knacks to find earrings larger than my ears. I look in the mirror and see myself fit perfectly into a frame with moist wind, swaying coconut trees, grand yet subtle houses with slanted roofs and the scent of rain. In my delusion, I channel myself strength of the matriarchs that ruled the land in days long lost. In the newfound sense of self, with slightly frowned forehead that helps pretend to be someone not to be taken lightly, I walk the corridors; my anklets laugh at my command. The cool night breeze rustles the trees outside my hostel. Embracing life can make you feel invincible.

Obsessed as I am with patterns, I bought a full-length mirror for my Berkeley apartment. The loneliness of life in a new country needs an illusion to assure sanity. The stories I tell my reflection I believed might be a good substitute. Some say you feel like a woman after 25. The person I see in my Ikea mirror that sits next to the Ikea dressing table that fits in an Ikea bedroom – furniture that scream conventional and, if I am to be critical, generic – might be a woman, but I hardly recognize her. She passes the vibe check, looks acceptable, just like my white stain furniture, but nothing about her has the tension of a brewing thunderstorm or the calmness after it passes. She too has evolved to fit into well packed Ikea boxes. Somewhere along the way, after efforts to tame my unruly hair, my misplaced temper, my misfit clothes, I too might have morphed into someone acceptable, yet generic and conventional. The price of fitting in. Yet there are some traces left – the hardened tan on my arms, the expressions that give away everything in my mind, the Malayalam songs and poems I still scribble in the corners of my business school notebooks. How long until I lose it all? How long until my mirrors are too cool to remember the nine-year-old peering in from borders of fruit stickers and making a pact?

Perhaps my mirrors hold the secret to not lose what is left and to hold dear what I sometimes feel is lost. So, I take my eyeliner, perform two masterful strokes and a gentle touch between my eyebrows. I rummage for earrings and safely stored diary entries, wear them proudly. I let the curls loose, along with my expressions and glare. We’ve come a long way towards dreams; the laughter of my anklet has overshadowed the anxiety of nightmares long back. Some transformations too, were part of the pact. I peel my eyes away from my mirror and close the door behind me. I hear the heavy clouds give away anticipation as rain falls onto slanted roofs in sync.