The Mirror That Reveals Your Truest Self

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If you know the story of Snow White,

you remember that moment when the evil queen steps in front of her magic mirror

and says, mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?

The mirror tells her it's no longer her, who is the fairest things?

Of course, go downhill from there.

And Snow White is a fairy tale, of course, but there is a mirror that is said to reveal the truest, most accurate reflection of yourself.

And it's called the Aaron Mula Kanadi.

Journalist Elliot Stein traveled to a small village in India

where the community there has been hand-crafting these incredible mirrors for more than 300 years.

It's a process that has been guarded and passed down through the generations.

I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is Atlas Obscura,

a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

And Elliot Stein has traveled the world reporting on the people who are keeping rare and ancient traditions alive.

He wrote about it in his book, custodians of wonder, ancient customs, profound traditions, and the last people keeping them alive.

And we are talking to Elliot Stein today. Thanks for being with us. Welcome back.

Thanks so much for having me.

So first, I just have to ask, like, how did you hear about this mirror?

Yeah, you know, like so many journalists, you often wander on the globe and you kind of hear these little tidbits where you read them somewhere.

And you file it away in this kind of rolodex of ideas that, you know, one day, maybe, when the time is right, I'll have a chance to report on this.

And so this was actually a local story in an Indian newspaper about one of the craftsmen about seven years ago.

And it's not easy for me to whisk off to India and to go report on these things, but the opportunity for this book came about and I knew that that was my chance.

And so I took a, took around the world journey and headed to India and spent about 10 days embedded with this extended family of alchemists who live on the bank of a river and in a mangrove forest and learned all about the process.

Wow. So how is an Arun Mula Kanadi different from the kind of mirror that most of us, I would say, are used to or familiar with?

That's a wonderful starting point. I never really stopped to consider how a mirror actually works.

But there are a couple different types of mirrors and the ones that most of us have in our home is called a second surface mirror.

It's a back reflecting mirror. And in a kind of too long didn't read summary, the way that it works is that light penetrates the glass and hits this back reflective surface, which is often made of silver or an aluminum coating.

It will then bounce back, go through the glass again and then it will appear in your eyeball.

And in going in changing direction and going through the glass, there's a slight aberration or distortion.

And what that means practically speaking is that the image that you see of yourself isn't exactly how other people see you.

And so the other type of mirror, which is called a front reflecting mirror or a metal mirror, light doesn't have to penetrate this refractive medium.

And so what is staring back at you is a perfect mirror image of who you are.

And today whenever we need an exact image of something, whether it's for space exploration for satellites for medical procedures, you name it, we use a metal mirror.

And it's one thing to create in metal mirror in a NASA lab or a high optics factory.

It's another thing for a group of self-taught artisans living in the bank of river to kind of teach themselves how to do it.

But somehow that's what this extended family has learned to do and they've tightly guarded it and passed it down orally through generations.

Wow. And so you were able to see some of the process because again, it's some of it is secret, but they did let you in, right?

And it's not in like a big factory, right? They're just basically doing this in their backyard.

Can you just kind of paint a picture about how it worked and what really stood out to you?

Yeah, so what goes into a metal mirror is it's aluminum.

It is a series of different metals that they have to figure out the exact proportion of it to create this formula.

You weigh them out on an ancient Indian scale, which is called a valley kilo.

And then you heat it up to such a high temperature, but you use kind of what you might consider to be old replacement parts of household items.

The woman that I profiled used a leaf blower and she cranked it around over and over again until the flames of this fire became blue, which is much hotter.

You melt them down and then you begin the slow five day process of polishing it, of casting it, of basically creating this mirror.

Everything is done by hand and all of the elements that go into it are locally sourced products from the river, from the environment.

It's 100% sustainable and it's something that's typically done under the cover of darkness.

And not so much because the process itself is secretive, but because it's so hot in this part of India.

And you know, the flames that they're using exudes so much heat that the only time that they can really do that is at night.

So it's in all hours of the day process.

So there were a lot of late nights that I spent reporting with these with these alchemists, but yeah, there are today, there believed to be only 26 people alive who know the exact proportions that go into this thing.

Wow. During the course of the reporting, I inadvertently became number 27, but I will keep that formula with me to the grave.

Yeah. And the story of how these mirrors came to be seems to be a little bit murky, right? How did this tradition come into this one community? What's the story there?

Aran Mola is the name of the town and it is this sort of 2000 persons sleepy pilgrimage town in the Southwesterns, did of Kerala.

And the legend has it that long, long ago, the villages is built around this temple, this kind of 1000 year old temple, and a long, long time ago royalty invited this group of Tamil artisans to set up shop nearby and help build the temple.

And this is where it gets murky and funny, but one rumor says that one of the, I think it's one of the wives of the artisans, the formula for this mirror came to her in a dream.

And that's how it was created. In another kind of legend, it's said that one of these artists was was working on something for the temple and kind of inadvertently stumbled on this formula.

But one way or another, it's believed that Tamil artisans created this formula that has created a perfect mirror image of ourselves ever since they've lived here.

And today, this group of cousins, of uncles, of nephews have kept this formula, and it's kind of their form of intellectual property, you know, that there are many practical reasons why they don't share it with outsiders, certainly with someone like myself.

But what's interesting to me and it is perhaps typical of so many of these ancient traditions is that it's been passed down orally from traditionally from father to son from grandfather to grandson from from uncle to nephew, but it's only been who created.

And one of the one of the great heroes in this book is this woman named Sudamal J and Sudamal J her father was a canadi craftsman her grandfather was a canadi craftsman and her father had four daughters and no sons.

So about a decade ago, he falls terribly ill and the day before he passes on his deathbed, he calls Sudamal into the room, he begs her as his final wish, his dying wish to maintain this family legacy and he reveals the secret proportions.

And 10 years later, she is fulfilling that promise in more than 300 years of making this, but she is the only woman who has ever created one of these mirrors and she's to get against all odds and she's whom I spent most of my time with, but just an incredible person.

Wow, and doing it with a leaf blower with a leaf blower. Yeah, it's just amazing. And you talk a little bit about this to like mirrors across cultures right have this very interesting role in communities over time across the world, you know, they take on these symbolic aspects sometimes philosophical can you just talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, I would argue that a mirror holds probably more of a sway over our sense of self and any other physical object, it determines kind of how we view the world, how we perceive other people and how they view us.

And throughout history, it's played an incredible role in everything from self perception to art to to culture.

Mears in one way or another, they helped influence kind of the rise of first person novels, they changed our sense of privacy before the rise of kind of handheld mirrors, we were sleeping in in giant groups alongside our relatives.

And as mirrors became more and more commonplace in homes, it changed how we viewed our self and our sense of privacy and we started sleeping in private rooms.

It's influenced art, you know, these sort of Dutch masters who have these kind of haunting portraits of a person sort of gazing back at the viewer and sort of begging the question, who am I?

And mirrors, you know, everything from Renaissance era advent of mirrors and in Venice to Napoleon, who's who's kind of obsessed with images of himself and even surprise.

Yeah, right. You know, he solicited international smugglers to go all over Europe and kind of steal mirror makers and bring them back to France, but yeah, it's a fascinating thing that I never really considered before diving into why this one community in India has come up with a different way of seeing ourselves.

After the break, we will find out what people do with this truth telling mirror. What does it actually reveal to them and what happens when Elliott looks at his own reflection? That is after the break.

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Okay, so you mentioned how mirrors have been thought about throughout history. What does the Arun Mullah Kanadi represent in the community where it is made?

In all of India's southwestern Malabar coast, of which Kerala is kind of the heart of it, unlike everywhere else in the planet, a mirror isn't just used to kind of to gauge your physical appearance, but more to examine your soul.

And it's an important part of Hinduism where the idea that the entire universe, everything that has been created is actually inside of you, and kind of the mission of life, the purpose is to unlock these mysteries within yourself.

And so what better tool to do that than with a mirror? And so the Arun Mullah Kanadi is given at weddings, at housewarming parties, at births.

A mirror is typically one of the first things that you see on Vishu, which is the Malayalam New Year. Children are often let blindfolded from the home into the puja room, which is the most sacred room in an Indian household, so that their first gaze of the New Year can be into the metal mirror.

And then in one of the largest annual pilgrimages on earth, and I mentioned that Arun Mullah is a pilgrim town, something like 10 million Hindu devotees will descend on this small corner of India.

And for something like 30 days, they detach themselves from the material world, they wander barefoot through the coast, and as kind of their final act of devotion, they ascend a mountain.

And at the top of the mountain, there's a temple. And after so long, they come face to face with the version of God that they are hoping to become.

But instead of seeing an avatar or that you, they're instead presented with a giant metal mirror. And the words in Malayalam, it is you. And the symbolism is the God that they've been hoping to become is within yourself just as it has always been.

And so what makes this mirror so different as such a perfect symbolism for this, and I encourage anyone listening to try this at home, go to your mirror in your bathroom and touch it with your finger, and you will see that there is a slight space, a slight distance from where your finger touches to where the image appears to be reflected.

But in a metal mirror, when I say it is all one, it is you, there's no space. The reflection and where your finger touches is, there's no space. It's exactly the same. And that creates this sort of sacred symbolism for these metal mirrors that make them such a revered, holy artifact throughout India.

This is so, so, so cool. I cannot wait to like try it. I want to do it now. It does seem like there's kind of a mixture of like truth and myth, right? But behind this mirror, does that happen with a lot of the traditions that you document?

So many of the stories in this book, they're superstitions. And when I say we are what we believe, you know, it's what separates us from every other species. And to me, it's what makes humanity so diverse and wonders and brilliant.

When we lose these things, we kind of become the same. And so, yeah, you can order a mirror on Amazon or you could spend your life looking back at a, at a second surface mirror, but it's these small variations that I think make the world so fascinating.

Yeah. And I'm so interested to in the secrecy, you know, behind these traditions, the passing it down, the not telling other people you talked about as intellectual property in a way. I mean, there is like this sense of, you know, protection, right?

You want to protect the tradition. You want to preserve it. But I mean, in a way, it's also about survival, right? Not just of the tradition, but of the communities who hold these traditions.

I think that's really smart. It's, it's a sense of survival of identity, but also from a practical purpose, you know, this is what these craftsmen do. It's, it's their livelihood, but it's also their identity. There's often a blurred line between custom and custodian, but in a practical sense, it's how they make their living.

So this Arun Mullah Kanadi, it's, to give you a sense of how important it is, it's the second geographically indicated item in India. So you have Darjeeling tea, which can only be created within its geographical framework. And then you have the Arun Mullah Kanadi, which can only be made in this tiny, tiny community.

And all of the artisans that I spent time with told me that they're now tons of knockoffs, which is true of anything, right? You go anywhere and you, you buy something that's typical of that community and they're now industrial made versions coming out of China or wherever that might look the same, but are different.

And so for them, guarding this formula is, it's, it's a way of holding true to their, their origins, but also of protecting their sense of livelihood.

And in so many of the stories in this book, what is, what is causing these traditions to vanish is exactly that it's economics. It's the monetary infusibility of keeping these traditions on in, in 2026.

What do you think is the future for this tradition or the next, is the next generation interested in carrying it on? Do you feel like it's got sort of a strong foundation going forward?

I don't, and I don't for a very specific reason. One of the things that drew me to this story is it's, you know, it's impending doom for lack of a better description.

And the very reason for that is because, so Kerala, if you look at a map, it's the southwestern state in India. It's the first place in India that receives the summer monsoons every year.

And it is no secret that as the world is warming, the monsoons that hit it every year are getting stronger and less predictable.

So a couple of years ago, this kind of once in a lifetime flood from a monsoon ravaged the whole community.

It caused 1.8 million people to be displaced. It cost three billion dollars worth of damage. It killed 500 people.

One of the side effects of this is it destroyed all of the mirrors and the materials that these artisans rely on.

So, I mean, I can give you some examples, but Sudamaljee, the hero that I keep talking about, she and her two sons and her elderly mother were forced to jump out of the top floor of their home into this dark, torrential downpour that rescued by a pontoon boat and they spent several months being homeless.

They then had to rebuild everything kind of slowly, then you have COVID hit.

But long story short, this kind of once upon a time tradition, this was already on a perilous path to extension and then we have global warming, which is further causing it to be hindered.

And so now every year after this once in a lifetime flood, you're seeing a near replica of this, which is leading the people who know the formula to abandon it and to pursue other professions.

So I've talked about 26 people know this formula of which today fewer than half maintain their tradition and the numbers do endling every few years.

So, I am generally a very optimistic person. I do not believe that this formula and this ancient metal mirror making tradition will persist in 50 to 70 years.

So what was it like to look at your own reflection in one of these mirrors?

I actually only did it once I finally got back home and something happened, which I'll leave to readers to find, but something happened that caused me to look at myself and not to be heavy handed, but it is different.

It is exactly as I said, it is a different version of yourself than you're used to seeing.

And it's not something that I can keep kind of hanging on my wall. There's a certain weight to it, right? There's a power, there's a significance.

I keep it tucked under my dresser and I might show it to someone who wants to see their reflection, but it's not something that I look at each and every day.

I guess it kind of goes back to the idea of do you believe in these things are in hot and if you don't, then that's fine. And if you do, then you look at it through a different gaze, but there's a power to it which, you know, I don't hold lightly.

Thanks for sharing your story about it and about all of this stuff. Thanks so much for having me.

That was Elliot Stein. He's a journalist and the author of the book, Castodians of Wonder, ancient customs, profound traditions and the last people keeping them alive.

And you can go back and listen to his episode about the last night watchman of Yistad, a night watchman who is upholding this medieval tradition watching for fires.

We will put a link in the episode description.

This episode was produced by Alexa Lim. Our podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and Sirius XM podcasts.

The production team for this episode includes Dylan Thurus, Doug Baldinger, Camille Stanley, Johanna Mayer, Manolo Morales, Jerome Campbell, Amanda McGowan, Alexa Lim, Casey Holford and Loose Fleming.

Our theme music is by Sam Tyndall.

If you like the show, give us a good review and a good rating wherever you get your podcasts and make sure to follow us so you never miss an episode.

I'm Kelly McAvers. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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