VARIETY is the spice of life, they say. True. But what one has to question is how come this concept developed so very recently and even in the recent past it was given a raw deal. Look at the automobiles that are plying on our roads today. One can find cars in varieties of hues today. But just some two decades ago such a thing was not at all in vogue. It would be mostly black or just white, no in between at all.
More than cars, the bicycles were out and out stereotyped; they were mostly black and the one another color that you could find those days was dark green, which seen from few feet was nothing but black. So it was all black. Leave alone color. Even the very style of bicycles was quite monotonous. They all came in one model with a single exception. The ladies’ cycles had just one vertical bar different. But nowadays bicycles with varied color patterns come in very many different styles. No handlebars of two cycles going past are going to be of the same style.
Take pencils. What a burst of colors we have nowadays with so many cartoon figures and beautiful designs on them. The earlier generation was not lucky even in that. It was always a drab brown. The buses that are plying nowadays are a stark contrast to those of the olden days. Multicolored and with beautiful pictures painted every bus looks like an art gallery on wheels. For a person who has been seeing these differences in his life time, what a relief from a boring monochromatic life to a cheerful and colorful life!
Leave alone the inanimate things. In a sexually separated group of audience, in those days, the side for the gentlemen would always be colorless since most of the men used to wear white shirts. Even if they wore colored shirts mostly it would be in very pale shades without any striking colours or designs. But the other group of the audience might be brightly colored with colorful dresses of womenfolk. Today also one may find the same ’sexual separation’ in seating arrangements but the ‘color difference’ has vanished. Men side will have the same riot of colors, sometimes even more to the envy of their female counterparts.
It is a well known concept of Darwin that VARIATIONS are the raw materials for evolution. Mutations or the genetic variations result in changes in species and these changes get piled up leading to speciation. So goes Darwinism. If that has to be given serious credence then the infusion of colors in modern world has to be given equal importance. Colours lead to variations; variations lead to modifications; modifications need innovation and imagination. With so much innovation and imagination the end-products have to be naturally far better than those colorless, style-less old world products. Some process of Evolution !
Let us make everything around us more colorful and have variations which could make us and our life more evolved!
9 comments:
sam, I am awed at how your mind has interpreted this simple 'burst of color into this modern world.' In fact, I have kept in my mind this way all the while; looking at this colorful world today what we are seeing.
I thought, this is just an expression of once collective boredom and restlesness of the humanity. Here is a question for you, in your olden days have you ever felt that you were missiong out something like this color of world?
Why this awareness of colors makes you to feel this way, today? I have interpreted this way too, the pattern of coloring everything, is something to do with the competition of market, so the designers are forced to be innovative in order to get hold of their niche.
Now coloring people's head also a fashion, green, red a shade of what not.
So what I am trying to say is, do you believe, all these colors around you, make other people to live ever cheerful and ever stress free than how you were in your olden days?
Anyway, I like colors too. In my new home, we painted where no one expected such a color (in India and here), one room has a dark rose, and another one has deep Suffron and another Orange :-)).
At the house warming up party, people were making notice of that only, saying that this guy has gone nuts ;-)), but that was my point making people to notice.
Long live, Evolution and speciation!!
Nice post, sam! I enjoyed reading it and amazed about your observational pattern.
Sam (Dharumi), today is the first day I got a chance to see randomly many of your blogs, Tamil, English, and pictures! I realize that I greatly admire your attitude towards yourself, others and life in general. I am going to bookmark you in my English blog and visit often.
Take saris for instance.. what varieties.. colours.. enjoyed this post of yours.
//Here is a question for you, in your olden days have you ever felt that you were missiong out something like this color of world?
//
that's the beauty of it, orani. we took for granted that that's how things would be. a simple example - none felt 'why not a bicycle in flashy red colour?'.
doc,
at least saris are supposed to be colourful. (that's why once the very word 'colour' stood for young and lovely girls?!) look at our shirts - riots of colours. right?
madura,
i am terribly honoured. thank you.
wish we 'meet' often.
//a simple example - none felt 'why not a bicycle in flashy red colour?'.//
Sam, I thought you are going to explain that fact a little more.
Ok, does that mean, you guys in your days were less creative :-))and between then and now, the evolution sharpening people's mind more aggressively?
I also see there is a change in people's body shape and face. If you look at 1950 and 60s old movies, you might notice the difference what I am talking about, especially when the camera focusing on the public crowd. Why is that? Just curious.
sorry oorani if it is going to be a bit lengthy. who knows, in case it goes very long, i may be tempted to post it as a separate one!
on second thoughts, why not a separate post? let it be so.
que cera cera... :)
//I also see there is a change in people's body shape and face. If you look at 1950 and 60s old movies, you might notice the difference what I am talking about, especially when the camera focusing on the public crowd. Why is that? Just curious.//
sam, you have not answered to my second question yet... The observation is made even in the western hemishphere too (in the movies and in real life people's photographs).
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