Pink! It was a Saturday,and i wore the pink - purple color plus shirt that i had received a day before...I must say this is the color which i have never tried in my life.
Andheri station was less crowded that day, the day being an off for many people in office, but i had to go, for my office does not let me chill at home even on Saturdays. I never gel well with people in the train - never, i assume they shall never see me after this journey and it is a fair assumption considering there are far too many people in the city and too few trains to travel, and anyway who meets and greets in the train until you're a Gujju who till date must have paid more fare to local trains than one would ever spend on a Thailand trip. Anyway the point is I never gel well, but on this particular day I observed people seemed rather familiar, as if they are the same people who daily board at Andheri and get off with me at Churchgate in the same train. I am not saying it was because of the shirt I was wearing or the music I was listening to, but first time I felt as if I belong to this local train, people were actually expressive as they made space for me and lent me the dangling handles to hang on...of course no one left his seat. The color of my shirt suddenly was so bright that I could see the glow reflecting on the semi-shiny metal parts of the train which never reflected anything I ever wore. In all I felt it was vibrant and lively, let me use the word “accepting” experience in the train...
As I got into the taxi I suddenly realized I was sitting next to my junior colleague, who was also wearing a half shirt, now I rarely wear a half shirt, and for a second I thought I was seeing my own image in him, as if I have gone a level ‘down’, junior colleague as I said...I felt so ashamed of being in similar clothes that just to prove my seniority I paid his fare as well – “hey here is the money for both of us - he is in my team”, you know! But that was something which made the situation rather worse as now he would expect me to pay for his travel always. I was acting and feeling mature and I hated the feeling!
I reached office, in my office on a Saturday most of the colleagues (except the free-rider in taxi) wear anything but a shirt! Unwillingly I proved out to be actually a non conformist there, I wore a shirt on a Saturday! One of my female colleagues asked - "Apka koi meeting hai kya?" i am sure they even suspected me of planning to leave this job and going for an interview somewhere else wearing the shirt, anyway I smiled and denied. No! I am not meeting anyone just because I wore a shirt. I felt strange as it does not look a formal shirt at all to me, I would not wear it as a formal clothing but people in my office relate the word "shirt" with "formals", ‘what color’ they can’t see...it’s like a color blind office where everybody just observes the make, nothing more! No wonder the free-rider never gets any business, he wears the colors which he thinks are formal but are not and adds to the vibrancy of the clients office rather than implying discipline. I do not think this color represent discipline at all, hence does not qualify as formals…for me at least.
I left the office early that day to meet some friends over dinner. As they kept coming one after the other they made sounds which varied from "wow" to "eewww" but all of them did notice the rather unusual color of the shirt. A male friend said that I was looking different than usual which was no news by then, a female friend actually tried to identify the color - she said it's purple, no pink no "i'ts blaaa..." she was at utter lack of words. Maybe she had never seen something like this in her color identification classes, an unclassified visual experience. She was awe/dumb-struck as if she has seen an animal she has never heard about, read about or seen. Or maybe she was plain – colorblind as my office colleagues.
I came back home late in night, put the lights out and closed my eyes as i tried to catch some sleep, I saw that unnamed color in the back of my eyelids andColors..They do change how people see you in them!" I don't remember what did I dream that night, but I am sure Freud would analyse them something like this "Colors are like those shoes which tell a lot about who you are! Or who you think you are!”
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