I had gone for a long walk in the ‘woods’. It’s the only place in Mumbai with trees. I saw a beautiful white heron. And I could not help but notice how it sits in muck picks tiny fish from that dirty water and is yet so clean and white.
My mind wandered to the colour “White”. It is one of my favourite colours. My home is largely while, including white sofas. My wardrobe is easily forty percent white, without exaggeration.
Often in conversation, white comes up. – how can you wear and carry white. I am afraid of white. It’s such high maintenance.. A couple of my friends would say. I have noticed when people wear white they become extra careful. Extra mindful. Which is a good thing I imagine
Why is it. What is it about white? And what and how do we hold it in our minds? I suddenly have many questions. It is an interesting paradox at best.
Culturally in some parts of the world it is equated with auspicious and celebration. While in some parts it also denotes death and austerity. White is synonymous with Pure, cleanliness, holy, stark, peace, empty, open, uncluttered. We have the peace flag as white. We start any painting with first a white coat. White noise, white spaces, white goods. White dove. White pain. There is definitely a connotation.
Personally, I feel calm when I wear white. Our new Ganapti is also white and gold.
I have been perplexed. There is a notion of “dirty” which is heightened when something white gets dirty. It does not make any sense, because a green shirt or blue shoes with dirt is still dirty. But it does not feel or maybe look dirty. On white dirt shows most. And maybe that is why it scares us. Not because it is, but because it shows. It is Visible.
A friend of mine, some years ago was struggling with “judgements” that were dumped on her. And she felt unclean. So much so, as a practice we had to get her to “use” white napkin and towels in the hotels. Something she would NEVER do. Once as she wiped her hands on a white napkin it showed and she cringed. And slowly she began to accept that it was OK. Nobody was perfect, and there was no need for the pressure to be somebody else. Slowly as she got used to using white she also got used to being comfortable with who she was. An amazing person.
So poetically speaking, white cleaned her from the inside.
Perhaps that was it. The White brings everything into focus. Even things which were not visible can now been seen. Maybe that is the purpose and the anxiety.
In school, one of my favorite physics lesson was ‘Light’. It was when Visible light, also known as white light, goes through the Prism. Visible light is also sunlight. Isaac Newton was the first to use a glass prism to obtain the spectrum of sunlight. Newton split the colours of the spectrum of white light by using a prism. We know how a single beam of white light then gets dispersed to many colours (rainbow) VIBGYOR
Most of us remember this. What often we don’t remember, is Newton found that when an inverted prism is placed in the path of dispersed light then after passing through the prism, they recombine to form white light. Again.
humm….
Perhaps we are attracted to White, because it somehow helps us unconsciously remember that in white we don’t have to choose a particular colour since all the colours are already there in it. Perhaps that is what we denote with “peace flag” there are no sides. Perhaps we need white to make our own internal “stuff” to become visible so we can if we choose to do something about it. Not seeing does not means it’s not there. White makes the invisible visible. And vice-versa. Like Casper the friendly ghost.
Perhaps, White is reminder of who we were before we “dispersed” into the many shades of who we are and then one day we will go back to the same one light. And hence maybe it attracts and scares us at the same time
Years ago, I was in a Democracy Dialogue and we had invited some friends from Pakistan. Salman and his wife Shabnam. Salman is an accomplished travel writer, whose family during partition had to go to Pakistan. One evening he shared his story of how he had heard stories of anger and bitterness from his father and grandfather of how they were thrown out of their homes and country.
He said, he was often confused with how he felt. He wanted to change that. Because while he felt deeply sad he did not feel the anger and he felt in a way he was betraying his family by not also being angry.
He decided to travel to India and to his village and to his old house, that he had seen numerous pictures of. When he went there, he did not reveal his “identity” he was welcomed by this Hindu family, offered food and water. Made a part of the family evening rituals. And then after dinner when they sat, and Salman asked Mr. Patel, his story of how they came to this house. Mr Patel then shared through involuntary tears his story. How his mother and Aunts were killed. How his father and grandfather were robbed of all their savings how they were homeless. How this house had saved them.
I remember at this point in the story, Salman broke down. He cried because he realized the stories of suffering did not choose sides. That people on both sides and paid a huge price. That the “enemy” was the notion of division. How instantly the story of the house changed when he realised it had housed some people and given them belonging. He shared who he really was and why he had come.
There was Silence !!!! In which I imagined all those people from both sides, living and dead came to that courtyard and were standing around. Waiting. They were like the million different shades of colour.
My Patel and Salman stood up, tears running down their faces. Both apologized for what “their” people had done and what the other had to go through. They both joined hands and then hugged.
I was crying uncontrollable. As I imagined a long line of hurts being healed by that hug. The pain of all the surrounding people, feeling as if their hurts were witnessed and given voice to. I imagined all these colours coming together in that hug to form one colour-White. I imagined the future being healed in that one moment by those stories – by the White trail of dried salt – left by those tears. Which had been held back for so long.
White did have a way to clean and heal after all. Perhaps white has to the power to integrate the partitions that we have within and without. And while it may seem too late to heal the past, it’s never too late to Heal the future.
I had written and given this poem to Salman and Rashida. Still hold true.
The White Trail
The white- that was not so pure
Rough – coarse – Almost invisible
Trying to camouflage, But definite. It’s path.
On a rampage It corroded everything
The carefree hearts, The innocent smiles
The trusting hugs, The dreams..
Of Colourful wooden tops
Left it’s taste – In the mouth
Of the future
The White of anger, Of Blind righteousness
Of Absence – Of Loss – Of Hopelessness
Of the void – Of displaced memories
Of tears – Unshed
I look up – Surprised by the taste of salt on my lips
I am surprised, By the intensity of pain
It’s not mine…Or maybe
It is
The white trail, Has found it’s way to me
Across the Borders
After all.
A deep realisation – A coming Home
A Finding – I am just another you.
A Silent Prayer
Escapes.
Dear God let me never forget this.
By Rhea
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