In which Trupz asks are we ready to be seen

Perhaps that's what the mirror was asking all along.

I was at work when news of Vijaya Mehta’s passing started doing the rounds on social media.

I didn’t know her personally, yet I felt an unexpected sense of loss. It surprised me. It had been a long time since I'd felt genuinely sad about someone I'd never met. Perhaps it wasn’t the loss of a great theatre director that affected me. It felt like the loss of someone who had spent a lifetime understanding people. That kind of person feels increasingly rare.

Vikram Gokhale, Naseeruddin Shah and Nana Patekar are some of my favourite actors. It was through their interviews that I first learnt about Vijaya Mehta. They never spoke of her as a legend. She was simply Bai. The affection in their voices was unmistakable. When the people you admire admire someone else that deeply, curiosity becomes inevitable. That’s how I found myself going down the rabbit hole of her interviews.

I realised I wasn’t really watching interviews about theatre anymore. I was listening to someone who had spent a lifetime paying attention. People like her seldom speak only about their craft. Somewhere between theatre and life, the two become impossible to separate.

One interview, in particular, stayed with me. She said,

“I have learnt that makeup is something that hides an actor. It is supposed to be used to reveal the character.”

I must have replayed that part three or four times.

It was just that morning, I had received a delivery of a lipstick I had been eyeing for a while. Before I even tried it on, I’d already sent photographs to my closest friends. I smiled when I realised that. By the time I finally stood in front of the mirror, the lipstick had already done something far more interesting. It had connected me to people.

And standing there in front of the mirror, I caught myself wondering...

What has makeup always meant to me? I don’t wear it because I want to become someone else. I wear it because it makes me feel a little more like myself. I don’t remember when I started wearing makeup. Like most women, it probably happened gradually. A lipstick here. Kajal there. The occasional foundation for an event. Through all of it, I’ve never once looked in the mirror hoping to erase the woman looking back at me. If anything, I’ve always wanted my inner personality to come through a little more clearly.

My lipstick may not always be perfect. Sometimes it has disappeared after the first cup of coffee. Sometimes I’ve forgotten to check if it’s smudged before walking into a meeting. Oddly enough, none of that has ever shaken my confidence. My confidence was never sitting inside the lipstick. It had arrived much before the lipstick did. The lipstick simply made it visible.

That thought stayed. Like good thoughts often do, it refused to remain where it began. It wasn’t about the lipstick anymore. It became about almost everything I choose to bring into my life. A notebook. A pen. A watch. A bag. A perfume. None of them are accidental. Some things feel like home.

Which brings me back to Vijaya Mehta.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if she was never really talking about makeup at all. Maybe she was talking about truth. Theatre workshops don’t merely teach actors how to perform. They teach them to observe, to listen, to question, and in doing so, to understand themselves a little better. Every character they inhabit reveals something about the person beneath it.

Life, I think, works much the same way.

Every day gives us a new stage, a different audience, and a different role. We step into meetings, conversations, homes, and friendships, carrying different responsibilities, but hoping not to lose ourselves in any of them. Some straighten a tie. Some wear a favourite watch. Others need none of those rituals at all.

The rituals change. The intention doesn’t.

That’s why the mirror has never really asked us who we want to become. It only asks whether we’re ready to be seen.