The Dilemna of Colors

So its official. I belong to the older generation!!!! Now I understand the implication of what my mom used to mean when she said ‘ the definition of everything of this generation is different from ours’. What life altering incident jerked me into realizing this you would ask!!! Lemme explain….

Last week I was feeling particularly blue and to beat the blues I usually pull a friend of mine and go shopping. Me and my friend walk into a clothes store. I was in a mood to buy a pink dress and was determined that I would pick up whatever pink attire I would get. So the store assistant runs up to us…eager to show the store collection.

“We are looking for something in pink”

The guy thinks a little….searches his mind as though we were talking Greek and replied,

“Sorry, we have nothing in those colors”

“Would you perhaps have a shade closer to pink?”

This time the store assistant promptly replied with confidence…. “No! Absolutely not”

“Can we perhaps look around?”

“Feel free”

So with broken hearts and fallen crests….we decided to look around ourselves….and then on one of the most prominent racks…we found a display of a number of pink dresses and shirts….. we felt red with anger and hailed the store assistant

“Look at these colors”…..

“Yes", he said, "These are Blush”

 Now this piece of information just came out of the blue for us

 “Oh, This is not pink?”

“No ma’am….its blush”

 Now this put us all in a grey area. My entire schooling seemed a lie at this moment.We argued for a while till the store assistant got browned off …finally my friend and I just waved the white flag and walked off without picking the coveted and much debated pink dress.

It was time I revisited my education….so I rushed to my friend who is a primary school teacher. She belongs to my generation, deals with the new generation, and considering she teaches 5 years olds….she would definitely be the authority in naming colors!!! Turns out pink is not the only color that got a name change. This is what I learnt…

• Red is vermillion (Isn’t red just much more of a simpler word, easier to spell as well???)
• Orange is Carrot (Ah! I guess this is an effort to push this generation towards healthier foods!!Good effort, I must say)
• Yellow is now known as Canary (That’s a bird color!! So was the bird named after the color or the color named after the bird…..the age old chicken or egg dilemma)
• Green is Military (Is this an effort to gear the new generation up towards a more violent world??)
• Light Blue is Carolina (Now that’s a name of a country….am not sure if that’s politically correct)
• Dark Blue is Indigo (Ah!!This one was at least there on the rainbow color list when I was learning colors)
• Violet is now known as Jazzberry Jam (Jam I know…but is there a kind of fruit called jazzberry…..or is the name after the Dance? But then dances don’t have specific colors attached to it? Totally confused!!)
• Beige is Khaki (Indianisation of the world? Or globalization of Indian products?)
• Black is kohl (that’s the third instance of indianisation of the world…..or globalization of Indian products)
• Mauve is lavender (I think I will have no issues remembering that one)
• Brown is Liver (Yuck!!! Getting reminded of an internal organ while choosing colors is just gross!!!!!)
• White is Snow (Will Snow White be now called Snow Snow? Or White White???)

Thanks to my updated friend…there is no more color confusion and things are as clear as black and white….er …..kohl and snow!