This Colour. Purple.
In response to the April 2023 DEP Photography prompt
An apology of sorts:
I don’t have a favourite colour.
I like ALL colours. Every shade of them. What’s not to like?
The only ‘colour’ I baulk at, is white. For some reason, I see red when I see white. For some time, I used to extend this active dislike to off-white, too. That was because my mother-in-law had convinced her son that that was the best colour. So for some time, EVERY saree he bought me, was white. His mother approved. I raged.
Things reached flash point when we went to buy a silk saree for a festival coming up, and the man insisted on buying, you guessed it, an off white silk saree. It was a beautiful piece, and ordinarily, I would have bought it, and worn it, with pleasure. But that day, in that little shop near the college I taught in, I went ballistic.
I bought five sarees: we had gone in to buy one. One was a dark purple, with a narrow green-and-black border. Another was black, with tiny orange flowers worked into it with brocade. Another was crimson, with a gold border. The fourth was blue, with sliver thin purple stripes, and the fifth was the piece de resistance: mauve with small silver peacocks marching across the border.
Finis.
What a magnificent row there was at home, that night!
These are jacaranda trees. In Essendon, Melbourne, where I live, almost every street has one, or several trees. Some of them are on the street, some, are within private gardens.
By spring every one of these trees has put forth its magnificent purple flowers. Most of them grow wild, and on some streets in Mumbai, there are roads lined with them, a welcoming avenue of joyous blooms
My husband also has a problem with the colour green, and the walls painted green. So I got one whole room in my house painted in dark and light shades of green. I also got curtains of a pale green colour, strewn with yellow and green roses on them.
I had asked his opinion first, of course, like a dutiful wife. He had said, “Whatever you like.” So that was that.
This is the flower of the Passion Fruit tree. Myth states that it has a 100 purple filaments, for the hundred Kauravas, and five sepals, standing for the five Pandavas, of the epic, Mahabharata.
I love colours.
I think most colours love me, too.
ⓒ 2023 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
This is a response to the irresistible prompt by Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, where she says that anything goes!!!!!! and specifically to this challenge:
My photo essay is loosely based on one of Sahil Patel’s prompts.
Shoutout to Dr. Preeti Singh for this marvellous celebration of joy:
