The Black - Forever Bright !

Black is as underestimated as colours are overestimated. Our incapacity to appreciate darkness, or rather face darkness, renders our lives incomplete.

It is the ‘day of colours’ today celebrated as ‘Holi’ in India and what other occasion would be more apt to reflect upon “black”. Black is a fascinating colour (if I may call it a colour, though it is not any one colour) with various shades. Science says black is a result of absorption of all light. It has all colours in it. It has everything, yet nothing. In spite of it absorbing all colours, we see nothing since it reflects nothing. Black has its own difficulties, lighter and darker shades since its inception on this earth.  

Over the centuries, black came to be associated with evil, death, unknown, taboo etc. Black magic, black comedy, black box, black day, black mail – are a few to mention. Of course, this is mostly a western notion of black. Its interpretation may differ in different cultures. Nevertheless, black is as underestimated as colours are overestimated. It did not get its due appreciation. We are too fascinated with the brightness of the world around us and yearn for colours. Our incapacity to appreciate darkness, or rather face darkness, renders our lives incomplete. Just as not all that glitters is gold, not all that is black is bad. Though there are many who love black; the fashion industry, Hollywood and Bollywood making the most out of its elegance, black is much deeper than what we tend to see. 

Life begins in the darkness of the womb of a mother. When we shut our eyes black is all that we see. There is no moon light without the darkness of the night. All the colours in the world put together, cannot match the beauty of a firefly in the dark. Darkness blurs the artificial barriers we humans built to differentiate and discriminate among ourselves. Darkness is egalitarian; it does not care about complexions, whereas colours are partial. The darkness of the night lulls the soul and gives us peace. Most importantly, the existence of darkness is the reason we are able to appreciate the so-called ‘colours’ so much.

Then why don’t we celebrate black? Why isn’t there a festival of darkness/black? Why should any bad day be a ‘black day’? Why should anything unknown including the ghosts and devils be associated with the darkness? Why all the taboos are black – as in black comedy? Why a black cat is a bad omen in many cultures?

I think it is because we sleep through darkness rather than exploring it. Not just in the literal sense of sleeping during the nights but we tend to silence various forms of darkness. We are afraid to face the darker side of our own self, thus giving way to hypocrisy. Mothers try to hide the worse qualities of their children. A society tries to cover its collective wrongs and project itself as something different. If we do not know anything, we put it in a black box. If we do not want anything, we put it in a black spot. This tendency of segregation is not allowing us to face the life to its fullest. That is why we find the need to ban so many things or black out so many ‘unwanted’ things.

We should remember that except for the natural darkness or absence of sun light, rest all forms of darkness we associate with black is purely a human creation. We associate grief to black, in order to highlight that grief is unwanted, uncalled for and undesirable. True, who would want to grieve? But grief is grief in the first place because we created something called happiness and value it more than grief. In addition, we falsely associate colours with happiness and black with grief, and try to avoid it, though both are our creations.

Black is for experimenters. It has every colour absorbed in it. Only those who experiment with it will be able to find different colours in it. It has everything yet reflects nothing. It is one’s own willingness to see through it, and face it, which reveals various shades of it. Black will remain that abstract nothingness which doesn’t give any concrete answers to our life questions. However, for those who look through and experiment with it will see its colours unleashing. Those shall realise that black is much beyond the superficial colours which reflect one single light. For them, black is confidence, black is elegance, black is bright and black is light. It is not that simple to comprehend ‘nothing’. History shows only a few were able to celebrate the darkness, celebrate the black and add more shadows to complete one’s life.