Green lies between yellow and blue in the gamut of colors of visible light

When I was 18, I had a dream. Did I hear someone ask WHAT that has to do with the color Green? Patience. All will be revealed. So, at 18 I had this dream. It was my wedding and I was in a green sari. GREEN?! No way, I thought disdainfully. I had already decided upon the color of my wedding sari, though I had not yet met the man who would marry me. Off-white, which is the color of the set-mundu worn by Mallus, was my choice.

Five years later when my marriage was “fixed” and I went to buy a sari for myself, my Aunt put her foot down about buying what she (who should have known better, grrr….) called a ‘white’ sari. Being outnumbered I had no choice but to give up my dream. But I was damned if I was going to buy purple as suggested because it was the rage just then, or even red. My liking for red had not yet emerged and so was a strict no-no. Then the salesman spread out this green Tanchoi silk sari and I said, THIS! So, five years after I saw the dream, it had come true. That is the story of how I happened to wear green for my wedding.

I love green, not in clothes, but in Nature. My love for trees is legendary. In fact stipulated criterion for liking a place is that it has plenty of trees all around. Green leaves on trees act as coolant to tired eyes. Luckily for me, I stay at just such a place. I can feats my eyes as much as I want on green all around. Though my household help grumbles about the trees standing in the neighbor’s yard shedding leaves and littering our own backyard, I am very happy that they have trees at all growing in their yard. In fact I was really sad and pissed off when my  immediate neighbor had the tree cut that stood right outside my bedroom window.

Just as other colors it has its various shades, lime green, parrot green, olive green, moss green, mantis green, fern green, myrtle green, forest green, tea green, midnight green, sea green, emerald, pine green and many, many more including India green! (link). Apart from snakes, birds and frogs, there is green piranha and even a green huntsman spider. I am not much liking the fact that this feller can camouflage himself very well and pounce on me when I least expect it.

By the way did you know that the name green comes from the Middle English and Old English word grene, which has the same root as the words grass and grow? Yup, so says Wiki (link. Another interesting piece that it throws at us is that the first recorded use of the word green as a color term in Old English dates to AD 700. Green symbolizes rebirth and regeneration. One just has to see what happens after rains to know how apt this symbolism is. But… it is also associated with envy and jealousy (green-eyed monster) and also with youth and inexperience (greenhorn). So here is a question for you all on Green Day: How many of you have got a green thumb?

I am taking part in 

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