They ask me about my sudden inkling, my sudden draw towards flowers, towards colour, and as much as I want to tell them why, because there are reasons I could sit and fill pages about, I often wonder: is it not enough? Is it not enough to stop and smell the flowers, to look at as much colour as the world bestows on us, and to do it because we can? Is it not enough to love the world without reason, without a tale of epic change or some grand adventure dictating this decision to embrace the light and everything it falls on? It is, it is enough; I have invited colour into my life like how we invite an old friend. Like how we do not know anything about the friend, I do not know anything about this colour I talk about, but I am willing to ask questions and indulge it, so it spills and continues to spill further into my life. Where do you come from, I shall ask it? And it’ll tell me: a little bit of everything, but mostly joy.
There has never been a spring like this before, and there will never be a summer like this before. I have built a garden in my mind. Naturally, I spent a lot of time there; I reckoned there must be some colour. It is hard work, but every good thing in life is hard work. There are a thousand patches of periwinkles, daisies, pansies, and roses. There are long, winding vines of bougainvillaea creeping about on the railings of the cottage I often retreat to. Indian laburnums planted all around the periphery shower their yellow on everything else. It has taken me a long time to build this garden, and the cottage in my head has survived the harshest of winters. What changed? One day, I let the snow fall as it may. It changed everything.
It is the paradox of paradise: you can only reach it when you stop trying to find it. Fields filled with crunchy autumn leaves are the only promised land we need. There is heaven in winters if winters are all you get. The torment of monsoon is still a blessing. And if you wait long enough, and if you’re patient without expectation, all of it gives way to warmer days, filled with colour and all things bright and beautiful.
Should there be a reason for how the world has always worked?