Manchester
United, Communism, Ferrari, Coca Cola, McDonald’s… What’s the connection? Yes…
you got it. It’s the colour red.
Research has proved that the sight of colour red incites hunger and thirst.
McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Red Bull are testimony to this fact. Red also signifies
victory. It is no surprise that the top 3 teams in the English Premier League
have red in their insignias – Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal.
Colours are
all around us. One cannot deny the impact of colours in our lives. You wake up
and brush your teeth… the toothpaste is white if it is dental cream, red, green
or blue in case of gel. Your morning tea/ coffee is brown or black depending on
your milk preference. Oh! If you happen to be a teetotaler, white milk is your
drink. Breakfast time and the butter and cheese you eat is yellow. So even
before you step out of your home for work or college, you end up seeing close
to eight colours.
One emotion
can have different colours in different parts of the world. Mourning for
example in the UK is black, in India it is white while in Brazil it’s purple. Whoa!!
An international marketing manager better be aware of these facts!! Red is for
stop/ danger while green it is green for go.
The
different shades help us bind together as a group – Black for all the
pseudo-Satan worshippers and death metalers around the globe, Red scarves and
jerseys Manchester United fans, Blue for all the Team India, Green for all the
surreal capitalists. These clusters have people of different race, class and
sex. You’ll find a Caucasian Eminem rapping about the Ghetto with his
African-American counterparts, Indian Metal bands with names like Demonic Resurrection
and an African endorsing Yoga!!
However,
colours segment people right from the time they come out of the mother’s womb.
A girl gets a pink towel and the boy gets a blue. People are white, black,
brown and yellow. You have white collar jobs and you have blue collar jobs.
Isn’t that a paradox?! So are colours
binding us or fragmenting us? Well… I don’t know. In case you figure out, do
let me know. Google, in my opinion, is a smart operator considering the colours
of the six alphabets in its names keep changing!!
The colour
I see as green… Is it really green? Maybe I was taught by a colour blind
teacher in kindergarten who couldn’t differentiate between green and blue. Have
I all my life known blue as green? Team India’s fatigues are green? The vast
oceans are green? The sky is green? I really hope that’s not the case. I pray
that my perception of green is same as the rest of the world.
Before I
conclude, I will leave you with some food for thought. Are black and white
shades of grey?
