Violet is defined as a bluish purple color. 

Growing up, I was never too sure of the difference between Violet and Purple, so I sort of ended up using them interchangeably. Not that anyone was too bothered about it since those weren’t days when people split hairs on such matters. If we children went to grownups with questions regarding shades of colors, they would impatiently say things like, “Call it whatever you want, and now just get out of my hair!” or the more dangerous, “Don’t you have anything to study?!” Besides, there was no all-knowing Google to turn to for answers like in the present age. So naturally I had to do the best I could which was to blunder along clueless for a few more years till enlightenment dawned.

In the traditional color wheel, violet is sandwiched between blue and purple. That puts them right next to each other. No wonder I was confused. Of course, I knew purple to be a rich color. The name itself evoked velvet robed royalty in my imaginative mind. The problem was that I attributed the same qualities to violet too. Anyway, it was easy once I realized that Violet is a secret depressive who has a thing for blue, while Purple is a proclaimed leftist, with leanings towards red.

Violet it seems has been around since ages. “Traces of very dark violet, made by grinding the mitneral manganese, mixed with water or animal fat and then brushed on the cave wall or applied with the fingers, are found in the prehistoric cave art in Pech Merle, in France, dating back about twenty-five thousand years” (source Wiki)

Imagine that! It is a color that goes so far back and yet somehow was never one that found its way into my wardrobe of its own accord. It had never caught my eye! I did rectify the lapse in the intervening years, by remembering to buy myself a violet sari with a modern art print, as also a salwar-kameez with a host of tiny violet flowers in a white background. That is so long ago in the past, a period of my life when sari was still a part of my wardrobe. You guessed it; I don’t much wear it now. For the record, I actually HATE it, the sari I mean, not the color violet and prefer not to wear it ever.

Anyway, getting back, though I added the missing color to my wardrobe, I was at the time totally unaware of a future that awaited me, an unknown future of blogging and online friends which was as yet years away, a time to come in which a friend would address me by the name of ‘Rainbow’ (link). I had to fulfill the criterion of owning all colors of the spectrum to justify the name conferred. Didn’t I?

Far-fetched imaginary theories apart, the truth is I do go out of my way to choose colors that I don’t already have. Unlike those who are happy to surround themselves with their one favorite color, I am all for variety. As for the sobriquet of ‘rainbow’ that eventually came my way, it was as much for the colors I wore as my ever cheerful disposition. That brings me to the theme I have chosen for the Festival of Words at Write Tribe. The colors of the rainbow. Today is Violet Day.

 

I am taking part in 

The Write Tribe Festival of Words 1st – 7th September 2013.