Nom-nomming On Chartreuse
Synesthesia
For as long as I have remembered, I have wanted to ‘eat’ beautiful colours.
Among the perks of being a synesthete is having a deep appreciation of colour. And relating to shades and tones in ways that most people I know don’t quite understand.
Multi-hued pictures on school labels, especially those of flower bouquets. All the dancing wavelengths thrown on the wall from the pulsing disco light my mom put up for Christmas every year. The psychedelic assortment of colours in a beach-side clothing store in Goa.
It was only recently that I realized, that it may have been my first experience with a spiritual pull as a child — my juvenile mind seems to have translated the phrase ‘being one with’, to the simple act of ‘eating’.
I never reasoned with this bizarre desire.
If I saw a pretty blue, say, the intense shade of copper sulphate in a test tube, or a spotless, cloudless 4 PM sky, I wanted to devour this blue with a crazed intensity not at all rooted in stomach-based hunger.
Colour combinations were another story altogether. A saree fit for the gods, displayed in a shop window. I don’t particularly like sarees. But I stare and stare at the pin-up, my eyes feasting like someone at an all-you-can-eat buffet after days of starvation.
The saree is a gently shimmering hue of blue-grey that speaks to me of dissolution, anonymity, and being one with melancholy, yet being at peace. A border of the palest gold. Both together making the 6-yard garment look like an unexplored glacial cave hit by the first ray of summer sun. And I wanted so badly to ‘eat’ this. Of course, thrown back to reality, I made a run for it when the watchman glared.
I don’t understand why people hate any particular colour. What’s to hate in a Pantone 448C, so much so that a government mandated its use on cigarette packs to put off people? It takes me back to childhood days of jumping in shallow slush puddles in the monsoon. Though I’ve never wanted to eat slush, I. Want. To. Eat. That. Colour. So. Bad.
It instantly makes me hungry for soup.
I’m probably nuts. See you on the other side of Bedlam, maybe?
