The Colour of Home

The train smelled of metal and the last trace of night rain. Meera watched the landscape pass in broad, unreliable strokes. Even the green felt uncertain, as if every shade had woken up with its own mood. The cabin held a kind of heaviness she couldn't name. Sometimes the world understood things before you did.

Colours had always been a struggle for Meera. Her first memory of colour wasn't a colour at all. It was her mother sounding out letters at the dining table.

R – E – D.

As if the spelling might anchor something that was slipping through her. She knew the names, however, but she just didn't know what they pointed to.

She was taught the meaning of each colour, the importance of each. But to her, the less identifiable they were, the less their importance. They kept changing in each stage of her life. As the train sliced through the terrains of Kerala, the view from her window blurred between grey and green.

"What's your favourite colour?" her dad would ask.

"None, they are all strangers to me," a tiny, confused Meera replied.

What did it mean to be a favourite anyway? How do you choose among strangers who look alike? Questions like these were never a stranger to her.

"Well, who's the stranger that has always been there, every time you look, and has never changed on you?"

"The sky," yelled a smiling Meera.

And there ended the questions. Blue was her friend. As her life shifted from greens to greys in her adolescent years, blue came with her. In times of doubt and in times of joy, blue was there. All she had to do was look up. He always made her look up.

The monotonous alarm of chai across the compartment brought Meera back to motion. The view was now lusciously green. And as her eyes moved up, there he was again. Blue. But he looked different today. He looked darker, heavier.

"Momma, how long till we reach?" Meera smiled at how different her child was from her. She used to love train rides when she was his age. "Ten minutes," she replied, holding him closer.

"Have you decided what you want for your birthday, Ritwik?"

"No... you only decide for me." Ritwik, now busy on his mom's phone, had little time to think about gifts. He was absorbed in the colours on her phone screen. She wondered if he believed in them fully, or if he too suspected the world of showing itself in ways it couldn't justify.

"Have you decided what you want for your birthday, Meera?"

Unlike Ritwik, Meera knew what she wanted. She wanted a cycle, and she demanded one as soon as her dad asked.

Her preteen years were filled with cycle rides across the fields. Her dad stayed away from teaching her how to ride. Anger and teaching went hand in hand for him. Her cousin, a few years elder to her, took charge of that role. Unlike Dad, Naveen was always calm.

He was calm as he waited at the platform as well. He was calm on the car ride home. He was calm when he took her into the room to see her dad. The room where her father lay was a different colour entirely. As the blue got darker and darker, Ritwik's phone was no longer interesting to him. The house, the courtyard, the animals, the air, he had never experienced life like this before. The charm of this place took over him completely.

After neighbours left and after the rituals folded themselves away and after the first decisions were made, Meera stepped outside. As she came out onto the front yard, she felt lighter. She could feel blue getting lighter as well, and as she looked down, she found Ritwik riding her old cycle. A smile ran to her faster than her thoughts.

"Momma..."

"Yeah?"

"How come your cycle is red? You hate red."

"Yeah, but your grandpa loved red.”

About the Author: Anand Padmasenan is a filmmaker, writer, and designer with a master's degree in Film and Video Communication from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and a bachelor's degree in Architecture. His work explores the intersections of visual storytelling, accessibility, and inclusive design, often drawing from personal experience. Anand's practice blends critical academic questioning with visual and literary mediums, using documentary films and narrative essays to challenge norms and reframe creative education.