Colors which complete you!

This post is written as an entry for the contest 'Take Flight With Colour' organised by Indiblogger and HP laser printers. If you like this post then do vote for me at IndiVine. 

My mother always has complaints regarding my color sense as I am more inclined towards white or other light colors. Although there should always be an exception, hence color blue is also my favorite.

It was one of the preparatory days to attend my elder sister’s marriage. As I was staying in hostel in my master course, I reached my home two days before the ceremony.  I have not enough time for shopping my accessories and clothing for that especial day. Despite of so many requests from my mother n sisters to allow them to buy my things by their choices, I chose to do it by myself only.

 “Oh no…….. You have brought again the same white and black ones. Butru, could you please change your taste in color. Aren’t you getting bored with these repeated and dull colors?”-These criticisms are often common to me whenever I buy my clothes.

“Well, I think that it enhances the next color you added with.”- My most answerable answer for such criticism.

“And I hope that you can elaborate it further to me.”- My mother gave me a questioning look.

“Oh! Of course my dear mamma, See, if I match a gorgeous red dupatta with any white dress or a pink t-shirt with grey lowers, it becomes the best combination. Alone red could not be notable until or unless we add some light color. it's my belief that the beauty of color lies within these combination of colors. Got it?”- I smiled at my wit as usual.


But my mother is much smarter than me, so she threw the next googly to me. “Nobody can compete with you over an argument. So I agreed that you won! So where are the other colors to make your so called great combinations?”

“That………… I….will bring next time.”- I completed the line with as low voice as possible and the next moment, I jumped off the bed and ran to the kitchen.

On the other hand my chachi who was afraid to wear colorful sarees, just because she is a widow as she think or other people makes her to think. I always observed the glow becoming strong in her eyes whenever she saw lady next to her wearing a colorful saree. She definitely loves the color. So I decided to give her a new look in which she always wanted to be framed. I bought a decent but a bit more colorful than her pure white sari. Initially, she refused to wear it and started to murmur all those typical social obligations and related issues. I knew it was her fear only which makes her to be hesitant. perhaps she bothers to people outside or the people inside our home? The long silence of her, by default, has revealed everything. Somehow, we all feel the same thing and try to give her all the best possible colors of life as much as we all can. Yet her chosen colors are still very soothing, I can feel the deepness of each color in her sparkling eyes. To be most imaginative, I can feel the soft touch of a pink line on her lips whenever she gets a new color.

Importance of colors in life can be understood step by step with each step having different meaning of same color. Like red is symbolic to show your anger, but to me in my childhood, I can ignore the anger of my papa for a lollipop. I used to rub red colored lollipop on my lips as if I am wearing any lipstick shade. My younger sister’s act is as dark as chocolate as my mamma says. Nobody can guess what would be her next step, when she will break down and what makes her to melt and evaporate in a microsecond leaving sweetness in your heart. Black and red colors becomes my favorite whenever I play with my sister’s son. I just paint one tooth of mine as black, grow artificial eyebrow and moustache and big, scary eyes with the help of kajal pencil and a red lipstick covering area more than my lips has. I still cannot believe that those days are my graduation days! During my school days, bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai came into limelight of media, when she gained the crown of Miss World. I am very fond of reading books, not only course books but  grihshobha, grihlakshmi, sarita, comics, kadambini every magazine available in my home. From those reading sources, I came to know that Aishwarya has green eyes. Only I could feel that how crazy I was at that time, whenever I saw her eye-donation ad as if I am verifying the news from those magazines. Each time, I left with a doubt on her green eyes as I used to think that green means green like grass. To pick yellow petals of a flower from a cactus-like plant having crown of thorns was our daily routine as we made quirky sound from those petals. We were never afraid of getting pricked by numerous thorns. I hardly found that shade of yellow in any cloth market which I wish that one day I will dress-up like the same cactus-like plant with same crown of thorns. May be I was envy her! And how can I forget that day when our grandfather brought oranges for us which was very bright in color and just smaller than my football in size. We all were playing with our own share of oranges, suddenly I missed the catch and my share was now lying on the grass-ground. I still remember that I kept watching my orange from first floor so that no one can have my share. But also I could not take the risk to go down and get my orange back as I feared that someone may come and steal my orange during my way to reach the ground. Sometimes I feel that orange is still lying on that soothing green grass-field and I am still trying to go down the stairs of time to get back my orange of childhood. Another funny part of my childhood was toothpaste, the red and blue colored close-up toothpaste which I insisted to bring that month on the account of our monthly ration. How can I forget the experiment with those toothpastes! Every morning I used to try one layer of red toothpaste and then another layer of blue toothpaste and get the final color as violet. I thought that I have done something new research and smiled like a noble prize winner. I think there are plenty of moments filled with colors, but I also fear what would happen in absence of these colors?

Being fascinated to old things, I often search every corner and layers of old rusted iron trunks in store room.  May be some day I would get old jewelries, coins made up of silver, pouches with old silk work or things which my dreamy eyes want to see. On one of those investigation days, I found a photograph of my mamma and papa just after their marriage. It was black and white photograph, but my most favorite photograph. Earlier, that photograph was well-framed and kept near the T.V. table. Unfortunately, someday the frame was broken in a cleaning process and after which that photograph was sent to one the albums of one of the trunks.


I kept looking at that golden moment photograph and dreaming of it in color for a long time.  That Black and white photograph always makes me curious about the time of my young parents. What would be the color of my mamma's saree? Whether my papa’s hair is grey from early age? How was the make-up of my mother and how was she looking at that get-up?

My Parents

Finally, I decided to make a copy of that photograph in color by digitizing it. So, I went to a photo-studio near my home and showed the photograph which I wanted to be in color now. At that time, I did not get any regular pocket money, yet I paid 300 rupees for coloring it from my savings.

For some reason I was out of the station, so I instructed my friend Anita to bring back those photographs (old  as well as new colored one) from the studio. As I reached my home, I was very eager to see my parents in color. I opened the packet within a second. The photograph was colored very well, although I could not figure out that what is missing in that picture and bothering me. I only felt that it was incomplete somehow. May be the colors in my dream did not match with the colors given by the studio-man. Later I found out that the color of vermilion is still light grey. Perhaps the studio-man forgot to change the vermilion color into red and so the picture was incomplete. After that I did not get time to go back to the studio and make corrections. Now, it is always with me in an envelope.

After photoshop

If one day my one wish to color anything will come true, I will re-color that photograph with my dream colors.  I just wanted to have the colors which complete you, mamma...papa...