Shades of Grey

My house is being painted in my absence, and my tasteless father came up with the brilliant idea of painting it grey and white.

Not that it looks bad, but isn't every other building in the city painted grey? My dad begs to disagree and says that every other building in the city is painted yellow - the color I wanted. Somehow that didn't make sense, so the next time I travelled the 12+2 kms from home to college, I started counting. And guess what? There were more yellow buildings than grey! Shades of yellow.. Bright, sunny - the colour that cheers you up just looking at it.. Deep, orange - makes me hungry for some reason.. Lemon yellow - intellectual (?) (Don't ask me why - you just relate different emotions to each colour and that's how I feel), and some people had painted heir house a shade of yellow which the mals, I'm sure, will brand as "pandi colours!"

Strange. But I don't blame them. Yellow has always been a colour which cheers me up. Green makes me feel at home, true.. But disaster resulted the last time we tried painting the house that (ever read Anne of Avonlea? The exact same thing happened!) So, I wanted yellow. But on account of how lazy I was to pick out the shades myself, my dad got his way, causing me to swear that I'll have it repainted the moment I get my first stipend! I talk too fast, sometimes.. Sigh..

But I'm deviating terribly from what I meant to say. The title, as you can imagine was a metaphorical one.

A person, one knows, is never black or white. But somehow we tend to classify them as if they are. Good people. Bad people. It's hard for us to accept that the good people might do bad things and vice versa. It goes against the ordering in our minds. And sometimes confuses us. Good people always do good things. So, if a good person does a bad thing, the bad thing becomes good, no? Of course. It's easier to say that, than to accept the fact that there is no 'hero' and 'villain'. Just people. Regular people, who lie, cheat, help the old lady cross the road, give some money to the poor, back stab their friend, buy their daughter a doll, copy in the exam, walk 3 miles on a hot day to help a friend out, do marijuana, turn down the a.c to conserve electricity, all in one day and one breadth.

Though we see this around us all the time, it's hard for us to accept that it could be so. Every movie has taught us it is not. There is a good guy who does the good things and a bad guy who does bad things. God forbid the bad guy from giving alms to the poor. If he does, he's only showing the world that he's got a lot of power!

And mentally, we like to classify things. We like to say 'this is right and this, wrong' and stick to it. It takes too much effort to think in every situation and a decision accordingly.

And it's not just with people that we are so. Reasons, excuses.. There is no one explanation for not turning up at a party, for liking a certain hobby, for disliking a certain person, for not wanting to go somewhere, for breaking up with someone, for wanting to go a place, for coming late, for studying what you're studying right now. Yet, that is what we look for. A clear reason, an answer: "I had an exam", "It stimulates me intellectually", "I'm running a fever", "she doesn't love you anymore", "I like the food there", "Traffic!", "I read this book by so-and-so which got me hooked to this".. Excuse and reasons - standard ones which we use. Black and white. Simple. Will convince anyone. And save us a lot of trouble.

I'm not gonna ask you to stop giving such reasons and excuses. I'm gonna tell you not to. No one will understand the truth - no one understands shades of grey. They're hazy and depressing. They make no sense, and take too much time to decipher. And even when we do, they're just lines of black and white superimposed. Never a pure milky grey - creamy like the paint being applied to the window sills even as I type this.

It can't be done. Our mind likes to organize our thoughts. Fight against it, if you will, but remember, not many others will.