Yeah they were all Yellow!

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah they were all yellow

I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called "Yellow" . . .

(Coldplay "Yellow")

This post is part of the Chennai Bloggers Club's CBC VIBGYOR BLOG TAG 2 where some of us will write a post on the colours of VIBGYOR each day starting 1st of May to the 7th of May, 2020.

The colour theme for today's post is Yellow. 

Today was the second day that I went for a long walk in our beautiful campus. Some restrictions were imposed during the earlier weeks on the timings of the regular walks and the radius of distance and all that has been cleared. It was the same campus and same beautiful trees but my eyes lapped them up greedily heady with delight and happiness.

Golden showers scientifically known as Cassia fistula. A flower used for Vishu celebrations in Kerala, locally known as kanikonna

I have always enjoyed my walking time - a time of solitude and campus-bathing with the trees, birds, river Zuari smoothly flowing and the chirpy voices of students and others playing. But today summer has bathed the campus with yellow - it was a golden delight to savour the cassia, copper pods, frangipani and other beautiful flowering trees. These trees sway in the gentle breeze taunting me to capture them and save for posterity. I have lost count of the 'yellow' pictures that I have in my many folders and presently on my phone's gallery. How much we try to steal and save these sights - sometimes I never see them again but social media has given me a nice way of storing them and viewing them time to time.

While the campus is bathed in yellow, the sun also reminds me that it is summer time and alas! we aren't in London to exclaim, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" for that would be the end of any romance. But strangely I also basked in the glory of the evening sun in spite of sweating and panting during the walk.

Yellow has seeped into my being and left me like the lyrics of the Coldplay song,

So then I took my turn

Oh what a thing to have done

And it was all yellow . . .

Please do visit the blogs of Kaushik, Clement, Kumutha and Pratip who are also
participants of the #CBCVIBGYORBLOGTAG2.

Greening the conscious

This post is part of the Chennai Bloggers Club's CBC VIBGYOR BLOG TAG 2 where some of us will write a post on the colours of VIBGYOR each day starting 1st of May to the 7th of May, 2020.

The colour theme for today's post is Green. 

The colour Green is an oft abused colour when it comes to expressing the natural world around us. Anything environmental/eco-friendly is green. Conferences on ecology/environment have splashes of green all over and the staff members also proudly display their green coloured attires complemented by green coloured folders, pens and other paraphernalia. Of late, many news reports and conscious citizens have reduced the effects of the corona virus to mention that there is less pollution, the air is clearer, the mountains are visible and so on. Some exclaim, "The green world is happy!" While this realisation is dear, it is also a gross reduction of the whole environment that has improved in say one or two months. 

A fern that I captured with my mobile camera while on a trip to Amboli, a hill station in South Maharashtra in August 2018
This is incidentally called an 'eco-hotspot'

One of my academic peers and ecocritic, Stacy Alaimo writes on her Facebook wall,

"Just because people are hearing more birds, and cetaceans are hearing fewer ships, doesn't mean that the oceans are not full of plastic, the world isn't full of toxic chemicals and radiation, and countless species and habitats and ecosystems have already been destroyed. Those species will not magically return. . . ."

The same birds which have been there are singing everyday but given the condition of the quiet around, people are waking up to the same. Green has come to signify the earth and anything that concerns the earth but sadly it stops with just that. There is an 'eco' prefix in many activities be it a corporate company's CSR or a cosmetic product which often lures probable customers with the 'eco' prefix. Synonymous with the colour green and the prefix 'eco' are the words, 'organic,' 'natural,' 'bio, and so on. It's wonderful that many of us have become aware of the ongoing climate change and the rapid acceleration rate of habitats and ecosystems but how much could we contribute and take responsibility.

I leave you with the words of Alaimo,

"The broken and horribly unjust systems will cause the most vulnerable to suffer and die during the pandemic. And struggles for social justice and environmentalism will most likely be even more daunting once things return to "normal," given that the crisis will be used as a reason for accelerated extractivism and social austerity."

Bleed Blue

This post is part of the Chennai Bloggers Club's CBC VIBGYOR BLOG TAG 2 where some of us will write a post on the colours of VIBGYOR each day starting 1st of May to the 7th of May, 2020.


The colour theme for today's post is Blue. 

Bleed Blue is a popular tagline of cricket fans in India when the team is playing and sometimes this tagline applies for the local IPL matches too when the team Mumbai plays against any other team. I wonder who came up with that tagline because bleeding for me is mostly associated with the menstrual cycle or washing clothes with colours that bleed. Well, the tagline always gives me images of the colour blue just washing off and the players wearing blue get drenched in blue fluids and the ground is slowly turning blue because the players are bleeding blue and finally when it is done, the players' clothes are white because the blue has been washed off and the ground is soggy. The match has been cancelled. So much for 'Bleed Blue.'

But the vivid image that I associate with Blue is the musical blues, which originates in the African-American belts of the US in the 19th century. The music tradition is a lively one and the name means melancholy or sadness. The intensity of slavery and the condition of the blacks in America was depicted in these songs and often these songs became the anthem of Black slavery also falling in the category of 'protest music.' Perhaps that's why we often exclaim, 'I'm feeling blue,' 'Oh if I could drive the blues away!' and connecting the idea of moods and blues, I would often exclaim, "Ah! This time of the month gives me the blues" - a blend of the red flow and blue moods. And the fine result of blending these colours give another vibrant colour - Magenta, which luckily isn't part of Vibgyor!

Blue is also the favourite colour of gender-benders who work for discouraging gender related colours where blue is almost always preferred to signify boys and pink for girls. But I must admit that men look good in blue, be it shirts or denims and sometimes that factor reduces their ilk to blue which further transforms into a stereotype which demands to be followed. 

Well, so much so for the colour Blue. But I won't let you go without a favourite Blues song by B. B. King. 

Please do visit the blogs of Kaushik, Clement, Kumutha and Pratip who are also
participants of the #CBCVIBGYORBLOGTAG2.

Indigo is the new red

This post is part of the Chennai Bloggers Club's CBC VIBGYOR BLOG TAG 2 where some of us will write a post on the colours of VIBGYOR each day starting 1st of May to the 7th of May, 2020.


The colour theme for today's post is Indigo. 

Indigo was a relatively unknown colour to me in terms of utility. I knew the colour only as the reason for the British to trade in India. The dye started it all. Until recently, say ten years or more, Indigo was not a colour that I would think in terms of garment, or any other product and then the whole barrage of the garment-induced craze for indigo - Was it Fabindia? Perhaps. Then the entire apparel industry started promoting the colour and the people lapped up the colour almost to the point of dizziness. It wasn't common to hear:

"Indigo is my favourite colour."

"Indigo is love."

"Indigo goes with any colour"

"Indigo is Indigo and nothing can beat it." 

Then the world of commerce banked on the popularity of the colour and unfolded many items in this colour - Curtains, towels, home decor, and as they commonly say, the rest is history.

Then Indigo airlines was born in 2006 as a tribute to this colour which has its roots firm in history and has travelled from being the reason for India's bondage to the favourite colour of its people.

Now, I like Indigo too for its earthiness but what I dislike about this colour is that it bleeds too much
and I always have to take utmost care while washing any Indigo coloured fabric.


Please do visit the blogs of Kaushik, Clement and Kumuta and Pratip who are also
participants of the #CBCVIBGYORBLOGTAG2.

Violet hues in the time of Lockdown

This post is part of the Chennai Bloggers Club's CBC VIBGYOR BLOG TAG 2 where
some of us will write a post on the colours of VIBGYOR each day
starting 1st of May to the 7th of May, 2020.

The colour theme for today's post is Violet.

One cannot see the colour violet, I read. No, it's not purple but a different shade of purple. It is confusing for me who always used violet as a synonym for purple. Alas! My professor used to say that there are no synonyms. Coleridge said that first and my professor led me to that. I still believe that there are no synonyms. Every word is distinct and could fit a particular context so yes, violet is NOT purple. I think we are a species who always like to group similarities and tag them/it with a generic word which is often suitable to the context with minuscule degree of difference but then how do others even spot the differences. Instead we stick to the easy way of grouping similar characteristics together like substituting violet for purple.

We do it all the time, we have set words for different aspects of life: Cool, sexy, hot, woke, feminism and so on. We use these these words over and over until we think whether we are limited to these alone. Our vocabulary stunts rather allowed to stunt by us because we don't care to notice. We JUST want to throw our thoughts and words out there - this explains why blogging has taken a back seat for many who were active few years ago. The patience to engage with newer outlooks and perceptions are slowly but definitely disappearing. Some of us seem like the last species of bloggers who are often seen as artifacts who rightfully belong to a bygone era. But then aren't museums and history fascinating? Like the colour Violet which is not purple but like purple liked by many.

I used to know a member in the church named Violet. Her lips were affected by leucoderma. She was called Violet aunty.

Did you see Violet aunty?

Violet aunty was looking for you!

She used to talk fast and loud, forcing herself close to you. Being diminutive, she was oddly funny. She had two daughters who fortunately weren't as colourful, meaning they weren't named after colours. Isn't it a bit funny to imagine South Indian Christians sporting colour and flower names but having personalities quite contrary. Well, don't be harsh on my passing judgement. Violet aunty is no more and we no longer go to that church.

So much so, for violet memories.

Food and eating in the time of Corona

Things that were considered normal in the routine are still normal but the observation to details has gone up a few notches given the availability of time and leisure. For example, remembering finer details in films and connecting them to our everyday life and living is a passable but noteworthy activity. The other day, I was watching a disturbing 2017 film titled, The Killing of a Sacred Deer which is available on Netflix. Without discussing the film, I would like to mention a small detail in which one of the characters mention how he always keeps the best part of his meal for the last. For example, he loves fries and whenever he orders burgers, he keeps the fries for the last because he wants to end his meal with his favourite item. This detail is quite insignificant when you consider the entire film but not quite not when someone in your life does the same. My husband is so - he loves eggs (in any form) and almost always saves the egg for the last ensuing me asking for it because I would have finished mine along with the meal. For me, the item that I like has to be part of every bite and hence when I finish eating, all the dishes are done - leaving a clean plate. My husband is the opposite. He saves his eggs, the meat dishes and other favourite items for the last and after eating everything else on the plate, slowly eats the egg or any other item, savouring the taste, much to my chagrin. Well, I can't ask for it without getting fed on a lecture of how I have already completed eating, I had my share and blah, blah, blah. The end result: He does not share! Ever! Perhaps on a rare occasion, he might share based on his whim or fancy but that occurrence is like the blue or pink moon. Well, let that be.

The sunny-side up that we often fight for

Now let us talk about Feni, our non-human companion. He adores food - any time, any food except vegetables. He starts salivating the moment he hears his vessel being handled in the kitchen making us wonder whether he imagines the food, which is still to be proved. Sometimes, he smells some food and stands next to us in the kitchen with hope writ large on his face. A hope that is ever present and is for the now. He may or not get that particular item but he never loses hope again making us wonder whether he knows what hope is - The truth is that we often view his actions and thoughts according to our human parameters and would like to do so even when we realise that what we think is just our own perception of things. During this time of lockdown, we are able to observe Feni and his antics alongside enjoying them. Earlier food was something that was served to Feni since it was the time for food but now it is the feeling that Feni would be waiting, he has smelt the food and let us treat him and nourish him is the thought.

Feni captured in a fancy manner in one of his moods (could be before or after eating)

All of us are trying our best to live during these times and engage in whatever fuels our time and mind. But then there are days when everything seems to be a never ending drag that drains the mind and body and at that time food and eating become routine.

Hope you are well and safe during these uncertain times.