Who gave this world mauve, beige, purple, rose and pink? Is is treason if someone looks at the same colors and identifies them as yellow, green, blue and "light" colors?
This has been my most hated topic, and I have refrained from this in the past 4.5 yrs that I have been blogging. But Microsoft powerpoint pushed me off the cliff, just like Warren Buffet describes America right now. The 2007 version of it is aweful for special people like me, who appreciate the simple world full of colors, but not the world that is obsessed with identifying each one of them correctly.
It all started quite young, 2nd standard admissions to be precise. My parents knew I was their special child, one who could give you black and blue anytime with ease, but who couldnt quite make out red from green 9 out of 10 times. And the one time would be due to the arbitrary god of luck smiling on me! Having boasted enuf of my abilities, back to topic. My parents were admittedly very worried about getting me into a top school. I aced the exams, but the interview gave them jitters. Not for the As and Bs, birds and bees, but red and green. My mom was fervently praying my fraility shouldnt be exposed by a short bespectacles stubborn headmistress. I stepped into the room, and I saw 4 objects of different colors. 2 I knew for sure, the other two were two different colors which I couldnt quite make out. The colors came, but only 2 were asked and 2 were answered correctly. *Sigh*.
Still below 10, I was an object of ridicule among family and friends alike. My cousins used to taunt me day in and day out, not to hurt me but just that they found it unbelievable that I couldnt make out some weird colors off their jaded clothes. So they used to ask me colors - again and again and again and yet again till they got bored of the fun. Needless to say, my favorite childhood game was "the crocodile", where we need to cross a river holding the right colors, unless u want to become the next croc :P
I have always been confident of my abilities, and that somehow I could work out solutions for problems has been my forte. Every color teachers taught me got embalmed in my mind - if I dont forget them, I do not need to identify them again! So, leaves have always been green in my dictionary, although they might "appear" rotten brown for others.
In my teens, physics and chemistry wasnt that much of a mystery, theoritically. Colors were an integral part of it, so I needed to upgrade my skills to deal with the menace. I used to thank god for the guy who invented multi meter cos he was my saviour through secondary school Physics - I didnt need to figure out a single color from a resistance. Chemistry was a bit more of a challenge, but once u know the test cases and test results by heart, its just a matter of a bit of practice to get things right. I was very good at theory and manipulation to get "realistic results" that I didnt really have to "do" an experiment to write my logs anywayz!
My worst moment with colors came after my Std X. I have always wanted to be a fighter pilot, and was on my way to become one. But unfortunately, I couldnt get past a medical - they said special kids shud stay away from aeroplanes, chemicals and mining. A nightmarish looking circular color book in a local hospital gave me the full picture. I sweated like never before, the nurse looked at me as if I was from Mars, and I wasn't even half way through when she gave up on me. She dragged me to the doctor to complain about my inability to identify colors in their full glory. I protested, I can identify colors, but only that what looks like green to the doctor looks like red to me! Add to that the slight discomfort in seperating out similar looking colors or to identify hidden alphabets and numbers within a myraid of colors. And I just need a bit more contrast between colors to differentiate. I can definitely differentiate something dark blue and something in the red-green-brown range. Fine - I am human, whats the big deal!
Most of my twenties has passed without much of an incident with colors, except for corporate presentations when everyone is amazed by the full-color display. And that drags me back onto Powerpoint. Someone tell Microsoft to make things a bit more accessible to special people like me. For a start, the name of colors in brackets (at least for the common colors) on mouse hover would go a long way.
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3 comments:
Its a very interesting question...come to think of it colour has so much sigificance in one's life....reading ur post am reminded of the time when i used to visit my uncle's colony for hols...used to play with the kids there...a game called colour colour...and the catcher picks a colour that the others couldnt find...so we used to come up with our own names for colours.
Nostalgia of childhood days!!!
hmmm... deep! actually you're right.. there is such a huge and unfair emphasis on colours.. my friend is colour blind and was allocated a job of seeing if the lights at the train crossing showed the correct colours! :S
Too good man. True enuf, what's there in color, it's just dark, light and white, thats it :))
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