Amidst the maze of fake-history peddling by politically motivated commentators in India, Delhi-based academic Dr Ruchika Sharma has emerged as a slayer of untruths and unverified claims. And she does it armed with an unlikely weapon: eye makeup.
An alumnus of Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University where she obtained her PhD, Dr Sharma runs a YouTube channel titled ‘Eyeshadow & Etihaas’. While etihaas stands for history, eyeshadow reflects her penchant for makeup.
Besides that seemingly incongruous combination, the 33-year-old also throws in clips of Bollywood films for comic effect and poses in glamorous clothing on her Instagram page, as if outraging conservative sensibilities must be done from all fronts.
With an undertone of subversive feminism, her videos show her unabashedly doing up her eyes while narrating facts from history, busting falsehoods, and even calling out prominent names among so-called public intellectuals.
Dr Sharma’s display of brazen femininity combined with her position as a Hindi-speaking historian of credible standing is an intimidating power-move in a culture that is increasingly tilting towards toxic masculinity and majoritarian jingoism.
She has, in the process, become a beacon of hope for those who wish to distinguish history from ‘distory’ – local social-media lingo for the vulgarisation of history for political gains.
Makeup for healing
“I got interested in eye makeup around 2020 when I was going through a dark period in my life,” says Dr Sharma. “Looking at eyeshadow palettes and applying them felt very therapeutic and cathartic.”
She taught herself the art of eye makeup through YouTube videos. Once face-to-face classes resumed post the pandemic, one of her students suggested she create videos in which she could talk about history while applying eye makeup. The idea appealed to her instantly.
Her first video – a tutorial on Delhi’s Qutab Minar – appeared online on April 30, 2022. Recorded in English, it had a great response and she went on to create more, switching to Hindi to appeal to a wider audience.
“Every now and then, a viewer says the makeup is very distracting and takes away the seriousness of the videos. People have this idea that makeup is dumb, or that it’s flaky or flimsy. But I put on eye makeup because I love it and I talk about history because I love the subject. I can’t get enough of both – eye makeup and history!” she laughs.
History as a way of life
Born and raised in Delhi, Dr Sharma was influenced by the ‘simple living and high thinking’ value systems of her parents, both government servants. Her father – who passed away in 2017 due to prostate cancer – had worked with the Union Public Service Commission. Her mother retired last year from Indian Oil.
“I’ve learnt from them how to make do with whatever you have, conserve resources and not lose sight of the bigger picture and a better tomorrow,” she says.
Dr Sharma looks up to her mother as her role model. “My mother was in a joint family scenario; she didn’t have it easy but she did her MA in Hindi after marriage and then did MBA while she was working and had two kids. I don’t know how she did it!” she remarks.
Her interest in history was sparked in childhood by both sets of grandparents, who had migrated to Delhi during Partition from Sialkot and Gujranwala, now parts of Pakistan. As a child, she would listen with rapt attention as her grandmothers narrated stories from the past.
“A lot of my courage comes from seeing these alpha-women in my own life – they led by example. My paternal grandmother told me how her father was killed: he was pushed from the terrace of their home. She and her mother hid in an empty house for three days, eating nothing but raw wheat,” she narrates.
Her maternal grandmother also shared similar experiences. “They were very sure they would come back after three days so they buried all their gold in the ground,” she says.
Both her grandmothers were young girls at the time of Partition. “I have seen how they have been able to push beyond this trauma. When I went through a long-drawn traumatic experience a few years ago, I took inspiration from them – if they could brace that, then I should be able to do this as well,” she shares.
Later, when Sharma started studying Partition history as a student, she could relate to it much more. Her motivation to keep her YouTube channel going despite the trolling is rooted in these personal connections.
“History is how I relate with the world; it’s a way of life. Even if I go to a new place, I always check out the monuments or its history. I learn so much every time I research for my videos… so I’ll never give this up,” she says.
Inspiring the youth
She shares that she is inspired by Indian freedom fighter Bhagat Singh’s strategy to use his own court hearings to bring attention to his cause. “I thought that was another level of indomitable courage. And clarity. That too when he was facing the gallows. He had really amazing thoughts and ideas, and the way he articulated and expressed them was inspiring too,” she says, explaining why she has a poster of Bhagat Singh in her background in all her videos.
Putting in hours of work on her YouTube channel, besides other podcasts and platforms such as the ‘History Clinic’ series on The Credible History channel, means that Dr Sharma has lesser time for her academic pursuits. “But I am still contributing to society and the impact of these videos is way more than a journal paper, so it’s a good payoff,” she reasons.
She finds it heartwarming when students from around India reach out to her and thank her for contributing to their knowledge and even helping them score better grades. “I feel great that I’m hitting the target audience – the younger people – and they are finding it useful; it’s very encouraging,” she says.
Myth-buster
A specialist in medieval India, Dr Sharma is using her unique voice to popularise history, countering the fake versions that emerge from what is jocularly called “WhatsApp University”. She substantiates each statement with references and busts disinformation with evidence meticulously gathered from reliable historical texts.
“A myth they circulate is that women were having the best time of their lives before the Turks came to India. Then, there is this whole idea of women being raped and kidnapped by the invaders so that’s why they committed sati (self-immolation). This is an ahistorical position. We have it on documentation that the first incident of sati happened in the third century BCE, much before the Turks came. We also have the Gupta inscriptions in the fifth century talking about sati,” she says.
She emphasises that the Mughal atrocities on women that are being talked about in viral WhatsApp messages are not based on any documents.
She also counters the current political narrative of Hindu temples being ‘rediscovered’ underneath mosques. “If we keep digging up for what was underneath many monuments, we may end up discovering Buddhist or Jain shrines and beneath them neolithic huts,” Sharma reasons. “What use does this serve? How many layers down are you going to go?” she asks.
Coming back to eyeshadows, lilac, she declares, is her favourite shade. “Of course, if you watch my videos, my go-to eye makeup is brown or neutral. I put darkish brown or chocolate brown on the sides of my eyes, and right in the centre I put a glittery or metallic sort of eyeshadow so it gives a slight sheen. It goes with everything that I wear and with all my lipstick,” she explains.
The young historian adds, “But my favourite is still lilac.”
eShe 
She is the best!
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