Black

I think it’s obvious to any of you reading this blog that I love black.

Black has a certain dark energy; an energy that speaks of a power within that is waiting to be unleashed. It is interesting in itself, but even more so when contrasted with white. Black can give rise to awe or fear depending on the mental state of the person perceiving the color. One the one hand there is a possibility that anything can happen, because you are shrouded with nothing; on the other hand, there is a “fear of the dark” even in the clearest minds, rising from the fact that all cannot be seen.

There is a tendency to picture things when a color is mentioned. Blue in my mind is the twilight sky; yellow, a sunflower field; white, foam on the sea; and green, moss on a slate-gray rock by a stream in Kalakkad.

What image does black throw up?

In my mind the image has kept changing constantly. My first memories associated with ‘black’ is a dark room with a swirling, even darker center, towards which I am moving with a certain terrible fascination – with pumping heart, pulsing veins et al. I think it was in a recurrent dream!

Then for a while it was the black of a thunderstorm night. The excitement of a lightning streak tearing the skies apart and revealing the world for an instant, leaving it manifold times darker in comparison after that split second. Have you enjoyed a thunderstorm in a wild, open space? I have had it one step more thrilling. My mom and I were flying from Chennai to Madurai once, after my BSc. And our plane flew into a storm. Mom was panicked but I quite enjoyed it, with all the innocence and the awe of a teenager. So it’s about 50 people in a small jet, all quiet and pulsing with pumping adrenaline, watching the skies just outside of the window, not daring to imagine the mayhem on the other side of a few mm of plexiglass!

Lightning beginning at one spot and streaking through the skies at an unbelievable pace, throwing out branches from one high-energy spot after another. It was breathtakingly lovely. The sun was setting, so the horizon was outlined like a ring of fire; with a band of gold-orange hue around it that showed up the black of the thunderclouds in stark contrast. Turbulence was making all of us lurch in our seats. I was holding my arm rest so hard that my hand was slowly losing its feeling. My mind was filled with awe and a respect for the elements and their power!
I could well imagine a Neanderthal looking up at the skies and wondering about the wondrous beauty of his world. Thinking about that moment sometimes makes me feel small and inconsequential; but equally sometimes, full of power and an ethereal joy that I am part of this world, that I am a point in the continuum of time and space that was swirled around me on that one magical night.

Getting back to Black:
A small pond on a starry night, like a black mirror. I throw a stone into it. Plop. Ripples of silver star reflections fan out, splattering the mirror into a thousand drops of glass, each like a distant memory. An owl hoots in the distance, bringing me back to the reality of the warm rock beneath me, the gentle breeze cradling me in its arms, the leaves of a peepal tree nearby making sweet conversation with the babbling stream on the other side.

There are other images, more transient than the ones I have spoken about till now.

A certain black top that was my favorite for a long time. Black can make people feel good, feel attractive; at least I feel very sexy whenever I wear black :) like I can be truly myself and yet do anything!

A freshly tarred highway in the bright noon sun, the white reflectors on it making the air above the road shimmer in a mirage of reality.

Black paint in a balloon, suspended overhead – someone slashes the balloon and out spills ripples of jet black paint, even filling my nostrils with black.

A completely black Harley Davidson T2.

My most recent one is a very handsome Hugh Jackman in a black tux compeering the Oscars.

Snort!