
The obligatory Ash Wednesday shot. When I lived in the Chicago suburbs and then in Chicago, so many people had ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday that no one ever thought it strange in the least. Then in India, where people routinely have ashes or powder on their forehead no matter what the day, again it went unnoticed. Thus it was a very strange experience for me when I moved to the UK and had countless people tell me 'you've got something on your forehead' on Ash Wednesdays.