Colors, me and America

Looks like a reasonable topic... The posting is possibly not going to be this reasonable. Its going to be anything but reasonable...

Colors are beautiful. They should be appreciated for the joy that they create.

However my brief stint in the US has distorted my way of thinking with respect to colors. Light pink or for that matter any light pastel color is not a color that a guy in the US will wear - or he will be considered as gay. The society there relates all colors to the type of people who wear them - they bind themselves even to the color of clothes that they should wear and think of themselves as a free society.

Colors are so strongly associated with gender that even a small girl would not choose blue because blue is meant for boys. The girls would wear pink. When these young children grow up, they carry this conditioning with them.

That this conditioning is very strong is evident from the fact that a 'free' soul like myself is also sub-conciously influenced by it.

When I see a guy wearing a pastel color or wearing a pink wrist-band even here in Delhi, I end up remembering that he would be considered gay in the US. This has completely spoiled the joy that the color would otherwise give me.

In India, wearing light shades is a necessity. Its terribly hot in summers and you have to wear colors that reflect light (and heat)... And people are not conditioned into believing that blue is for guys and pink for the girls. So, I come across such situations often. And every time I decide to not to think on the same lines again...

Hopefully, writing the problem down - and throwing out the gubbar - would help me overcome it... Keeping my fingers crossed :-)...