Black And White

Robert Frost had once written, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.” Similarly, we tend to divide our thoughts, views and actions into two colors, black and white – black representing something dark, criminal and something not usually expected of someone, while white representing something noble, pure and which everyone is expected to be throughout his life.

We tend to symbolize everything around us in black and white. They form a major part of everything we see around us. They even have a major symbolism in our cultures. In various cultures around the world, black symbolizes death, mourning, fierceness, illness, bad luck, and mystery. Black is associated with dark – the absence of light, a believer would even consider black as something evil. In Christianity, black is worn during funerals. Even in popular idioms and expressions, negative words like “Black sheep”, “Black Propaganda” and “Black Mail” are used which further fuels the symbolism.

Contrary to that, the color white is considered a symbol of purity, elegance, peace, and cleanliness. While the brides wear white in Christianity, the mourners in a Hindu funeral wear white. This is since the Hindus consider the color white to be pure and wearing white to a funeral shows respect to the dead and also strengthens the belief that the soul will obtain peace in heaven.

Even in Medieval literature, the white knight usually represented virtue, while the black knight something mysterious and sinister. We even find in the movies, the hero often wearing a white hat and the villain a black hat. Also in the movies/ books/ caricatures, we can find a witch dressed in black costume and an angel in white.

These regular encounters with black and white references often set notions in people’s minds. People start relating so much to them that they forget about the one in between – GREY. An artist would describe it as a combination of black and white while a philosopher would describe it as a color of diplomacy, intellect and of compromise.

The world we live out is filled with greys. People can no longer be categorized as good and evil unless they are some sort of serial killers without a traumatized past experience or are some sort of saints, although recent revelations haven’t been great to support the fact. Even a vast network of our brain’s information processing is constituted by Grey Matter.

So how is grey relevant? If I were to explain it, I would rather ask people to peep into themselves just for once. Haven’t we ever committed anything we aren’t ashamed of? Are we all Yuddhisthirs – even he had lied once? Are we all saints – not without a past? These questions help us delve deep into ourselves while bringing out a true justification of our character.

In today’s world, where the line between good and evil isn’t definite, where everyone in an attempt to rise up the ladder pushes someone down, the colors black and white lose their significance altogether. A quote from the book Arjun, without a doubt, sums it all up, “No person is completely wicked, just as no person is perfect. We are all grey”.