The Colour of Krishna

This is the same tree that worked its magic on painter Manjit Bawa, guiding him on to his understanding of red, its depth and its nuances and the manner in which it could be abstracted. Over the years, Bawa has used this colour with full comprehension of its visual and philosophical impact.

A Ramachandran found fascination in tesu, the flower of the palaash tree. He stylised both the tree and the flower by using some real and some imagined elements and then made an entire series of paintings on the palaash tree. He converted tesu into the symbol of fire and used his own image, especially his hair, to reflect the fiery nature of tesu.

The tesu works its own strange alchemy this time of the year, which is very different from the way the two artists have seen it. When its blazing colours are plucked and dried they become a faded yellow but when soaked in water they turn the liquid into a warm yellow, pitambar, the colour of Krishna. It is the yellow of Holi at Brindavan, the yellow to get soaked in and to get imbued with the same yellowness that is Krishna’s.

A verse in Vraja dialect says: “With tesu’s yellow petals Radha wants to decorate herself, dye herself in pitambar and unite with her beloved.”

Bulleh Shah, the Sufi poet, reflects on the same concept and says, “Whatever colour I am dyed in, the dye is of deep colour; It has the glow of my Master, O friend.”In Sufi philosophy, the teacher or Master is a reflection of the Lord which is why the devotee wishes to acquire the qualities of the Master; in other words, get dyed in the same colour. In another verse, the devotee wants to play Holi with ‘a pichkari made from sheesham: “Come to my courtyard to play with the pichkari the colour of Ali.”

While Holi expresses the mood of happiness and joy and the longing for togetherness with a higher being, the entire meaning of Holi takes on yet another inflection. If one is to be dyed

the colour of the Lord, it naturally means that all human beings acquire the same colour of love,

harmony and togetherness and the festival therefore becomes the metaphor of human love.

Sadly, Holi is just for a day.

Too quickly are the clothes discarded and the colours washed away.