Discoveries

It took 23 years, 9 months and 30 days of life for me to realize that my favorite colour is orange.

Still, I haven't consciously pondered over the question of my favorite color in over 15 years. The last time I thought about this, I remember clearly, it was a very brilliantly blue skied day, and I was sitting on the steps of our verandah, amma and I, and we were probably doing something very important, like combing the lice out of my hair, before I could go out and fight with Balaji, the boy next door, who would obviously want to play cricket, and I would obviously, want to not play cricket.

So while my mother patiently did whatever she was doing, it struck me that I didnt know what her favorite color was. So I asked and she told me, 'Oh, I dunno. I like all colors.' I persisted, so she said, ' Okay, maybe its blue. Yes, i think I like blue.'

'Why?'
' Because its beautiful.'
'Why is it beautiful?"
' BECAUSE', and now another louse was exploding pitifully between her fingernails, ' Because, Aparna, its the color of the sky. Now look up.'

I looked up and indeed, it was truly beautiful, a gorgeous, radiant, electric, cobalt blue. I now felt uncomfortable. This was difficult to digest... process, even.

' But you are a girl' I whined.
' So what?'

Until that day, I had thought that my favorite color was pink. During my childhood, there was a real scarcity of pink- not like now, when all the disney princess school bags and the disney princess bubble gummer shoes and the frilly frocks and even the school uniforms are all in pink. No, 15 years ago, things were not so, we had to make do with Noddy colored Red and Yellow and Blue, all so primary and boring. Not to mention, we wore those predictable navy pinafores to school. So pink was rare and I wanted more of it, especially, since it was the colour for girls.

Well, a few years after that, when a consistently good report card, earned me some leverage with my parents, I had my entire room painted cotton candy pink, got pink bed spreads, pink lace curtains for the window and even a magenta colored Godrej almirah. I would go into my room after school and my head would spin and my teeth would ache from all the pink.

But still I was determined to enjoy this luxury. I didn't know one other person who had a color coordinated room, let alone coordinated in pink. Oh, I enjoyed the envy. My room had been butter yellow before that and I often missed it, especially in summer, when the walls would radiate nauseating waves of pink heat. But I endured it for the love of pink and because getting my way in anything, was hard-won.

Now coming to the point of all this: pink is not my favorite color. Orange is. And this has always been the case. How do I suddenly know this? Because of the way orange creeps into my sketches. Because I'm never inclined to brashly parade it around on my finger nails or as 23 out of 25 blouses in my closet or as a handbag. Because I do not go buying orange things and because, given a chance to redecorate my room, I would be very, very conservative about the use of orange. Because although its not fashionable, doesn't stand for anything and is not widely popularized in the media, it consistently evokes the same happy drum beat in the chest whenever I see it wedged between green leaves.

Because when its really love, its not gonna take over your life and force you to squint each time you look at it. Its a win-win. It gets to thrive in your world and you feel great about it. There's less to endure and more to enjoy.

Most importantly, when I close my eyes and dream a tranquil dream, it is flooded with orange light. Thats not so gay, when you compare it to a totally pink room.