The beauty and mystery of colours

Even a child knows that the expansion of the expression, ViBGYOR, represents the colours of the rainbow. The same spectacle which made the heart of the unforgettable and melodious poet, William Wordsworth, leap up when he saw it in the sky. All colours are nothing but different wavelengths of light being reflected off an object and back to our eyes where they hit the eye’s retina. A known biological fact is that the retina requires an image to stay for a 10th of a second before it can register it. Which is why a disk in which all the seven colours are depicted, when rotated at more than 10 revolutions per second, shows nothing but white.

The three primary colours – red, yellow and blue – have always had a special significance for mankind, with a mixture of one or two of them producing another four, namely violet, indigo, green and orange. Colours have, from times immemorial, played a significant role in the lives of people by representing specific meanings of life events, often shared almost universally. The meaning and purport of colours has varied over time and space, as well as religions and cultures, across the world. Colours have also served the important purpose of being a tool for social communication, apart from having a profound impact on our emotions and psyche, and shaping our perceptions of the world, as well as ourselves. Each colour contains a distinct energy and symbolism that elicits particular feelings and reactions.

Even during the course of a day, as the sun traverses the sky from East to West, the distance light has to travel through the atmosphere, before it reaches our eye, varies, producing glorious colours, such as yellow, orange and red, creating spectacular sun rises and sunsets. In a somewhat similar manner, when sunlight reaches outer space, all except blue light are absorbed, the reason why Earth appears as a pale blue dot, the phenomenon that inspired the title of the book, ‘The Pale Blue Dot’, by Carl Sagan.

The colours, of the dresses we wear, can also impact our confidence and mood. Vibrant hues exude energy and vitality, uplifting our spirits, and those of people around us. Bold and vibrant colours can, similarly, help us feel more empowered, courageous, and ready to take on the world.

There is a great diversity in the use of colours, and their associations between cultures, and even within the same culture, in different time periods. The same colour may have very different associations within the same culture at any time.

White, for example, especially in Western cultures, has been associated with purity, and innocence. It has remained a traditional choice in marriages ever since Queen Victoria set the trend. Red, easily the most robust of colours, in terms of its influence on human beings, is regarded as a colour of life, blood and earth, and is often used to symbolise primal energy, carnality and passion. It is also often associated with imminent danger, with a ‘red alert’ meaning that great danger is in the offing. Incidentally, red plays an important role in astrophysics, as a ‘red shift’ represents an increase in the wavelength of light and provides evidence of an expanding universe. Dependability a white flag or cloth used as a symbol of surrender, truce, or a desire to parley. Pink, a gentle and soft colour is often associated with femininity, motherhood and children.

Black, on the other hand, is regarded as having a negative connotation and usually symbolises with evil and occasions such as death and feelings such as grief or depression, a reason why people used to wear that colour for mourning, a practice not as common now, as it used to be in the past. Blue, likewise, stands for calmness and trust. Yellow is regarded as the colour of happiness and hope and, also, on occasion, means being a coward.

Colours have also, very regrettably, served to cause prejudice and discrimination being practised, on the basis of skin colour, a practice known as colourism, or shadeism. Colour discrimination involves treating someone unfavorably because of skin colour. The law in the USA forbids discrimination when it comes to any aspect of employment.

In its earliest known incarnation the ‘red carpet’ was not intended for ordinary folk. Even today it is only associated with high-profile events involving dignitaries. Before we bid adieu to the subject of colours, here is a snippet from my experience.

After having been selected to the IAS, I had to undergo the customary medical examination arranged by the UPSC at Delhi. Since I had no known ailment (except, perhaps, hypochondria!), I anticipated, no problem. My brother-in-law S S Yechury (father of the well-known CPI ((M ) leader, Sitaram Yechury, who was a highly placed official in the Union Ministry of Health at that time, accompanied me so that I would feel confident during the examination. His presence was not objected to as he carried the identification credentials of the Ministry.

After the usual run of routine test had been completed, I was subjected to an ophthalmic examination and, as a part of that, procedure which tested my ability to recognise different colours. Pages of a book were shown to me which contained pictures of objects made up of spots of different colours. The pictures would have appeared sharply. If only I was able to distinguish the dots of different colours. I simply could not do that, I was told, much later, that it might have been, partly, on account of nervousness and also the possibility of having a condition called defective colour vision. Whatever the reason, all that I saw in the pages of the book was a blur. Sensing my difficulty, the technician conducting the procedure shifted to another test, and a machine alternately flashed blue and green lights at me.

Once again, blue looked green to me, and the other way round! By that time I was beginning to get quite genuinely nervous and the possibility of being disqualified on medical grounds, loomed large in my mind. That was when my inimitable brother-in-law got into the act. An engineer by profession, he began to question the technician about the technology of the test. When he had succeeded in planting a doubt in the technician’s mind about that part, he asked why it was important that I should recognise colours at all, as I was not planning to become a guard in the railways! By the time I was beginning to feel a little more reassured and confident, and when the test was repeated, I fared much better, good enough to have satisfied the technician. But for Yechury’s presence of mind at that time, I would have had to return home, had shame, to face my father’s wrath.