Mission VIBGYOR

Life is beautiful. All around us, there’s so much colour everywhere. So many things to appreciate. Standing on a bridge and watching the Sun set far ahead of you, making the clouds glow an orange hue so warm that you almost want to cosy up right there. The grey film on leaves of the mango tree in your garden which transform before your eyes as drops of rain reveal the fresh green underneath. The unsuspecting, electric blue butterfly that flutters off its silent perch as you come too close. The shades of oil paint that swirl in your tub when you try mixing oil paints with water. The uneducated, homeless child who breaks into a welcome smile as he races to finish his ice candy before the Sun melts it in his hands. The stray dog who, despite the stones thrown at him every day, manages a sleepy yawn while lying on his pile of rubble in the corner of a street somewhere. The life that a simple bulb adds to a road-side store selling hairbands, clips, ear-rings, necklaces and nail-polish, when darkness starts to descend upon the lanes.

Colour can mean and represent such a myriad of emotions and memories.  It can give form to so many moods, so many wordless smiles, so many shared silences, so many dreams! So many things in life come alive simply by adding colour to them.  A simple photograph, after customizing a black-and-white effect, can suddenly look beautiful. Some say, sometimes all you need, is a little colour to your life. Some say, all you need is a little life to your colour. I say, all you really need, is an eye for both, life and colour. :)

Break an egg above a frying pan and even that has two colours to it! Try adding a red sock to your pure whites in the washing machine and see the magic one sock can do to a bucket full of white clothes. :) I believe, as we get older, we forget to stop and look, and more importantly, to stop and appreciate the various colours in and around our lives. The reason children are always so full of life and enthusiasm is not because they’re biologically younger, it’s probably because their innocence too, is a massive rainbow of colours we don’t even know of! It’s because their minds are so open to everything around them, so pure and honest. As we get older, I guess the bad experiences we have, taint our innocence and we become what is thought to be “worldly wise” but in reality, we start blocking out the yellows, oranges, reds, blues, pinks, greens, purples of our lives and focus on just the blacks and whites instead. We think, having just two categories to our lives will make things easier for us to deal with but we rule out the monotony we’re introducing to our own lives.

We completely forget to have fun. We’re suddenly career oriented youngsters who’re in a race against everything and everyone it seems. And life then, is indeed, crazy.

We suddenly forget how wonderful it felt to lie on the floor with one arm around the dog lying beside you, and the other under your head, staring up at the fan and drifting slowly off to sleep. We un-pin cartoon strip cut-outs from our soft-boards and they get quickly replaced with neatly made exam time-tables. Somehow though, those time-tables never come off. They just stay there till they’re yellow and old and torn.

Children today probably have to grow up faster than ever before. They barely have any time to live their childhood;  to jump in front of the pipe in the garden while watering the plants, to throw tantrums for new bicycles, to carve faces out of their food and be told off by parents.  It’s a dangerous thing, this trend. To keep up with time, today means – to move on from your current phase in life onto another phase, with your innocence and carefree attitude diminishing at each new step, at each new phase.  

And we wonder why children today losing their childhood at such an alarming rate. We’re constantly pulling them away from it, that’s why. We’re brainwashing them with the fear of competition, of being a winner in everything and a loser in nothing, of growing up fast so they can stand on their own feet and earn a living. What I don’t understand is, if we didn’t meddle so much and nag them to bits, is Time going to stop? Aren’t they going to grow up one day anyway? Aren’t they losing a day of their lives, as every new day that dawns, ends with a tired child falling asleep without any cartoons, any books, any sports? Why do children need Horlicks and Complan and Boost and Bournvita? Because they’re pushed to that level of neediness by the people around them. We’re the largest example of mocking the natural system. We don’t even allow growth to be natural!

And then one day, while sitting by yourself at home, while hanging like a bat from your couch, as the blood rushes to your brain, you realize all these things at once and it dawns on you how many colours you must have missed because you were busy being pushed around. It makes you remember how much you loved your life of colour and how today, after a long break, it’s back to being how it was meant to be. Colourful, bright, and meaningful. :)

So whether you see it as adding colour, or as adding life, I still believe that those who develop and appreciate their perspective for both, and above all, those who respect and nurture individuality, are doing the world a HUGE favour by being who they are. Maybe someday, the world will pause to look at the little yellow flower by the sidewalk that you never even knew was there though you walk down that path every day. Maybe you will look up at the sky to appreciate its sheer beauty someday, instead of -to call out to “god” and beg or threaten him to improve your life. Because you know, as much as people have told you, the world isn’t all that bad a place to live in. The human inhabitants though, are a completely different ball game.