This post is Pink

So slot me, I love pink. Unless of course it’s biotic, festering, oozy and [growing] on a living thing.

So blinded am I by it, that all colours in its vicinity, even remotely blushing, are pink, as far as I can tell.

A year and a half ago:
X [incredulously]: that’s red H.
H [adamantly, singular eyebrow climbing high]: No, it’s pink, X, can’t you see, pink – reddish pinkish pink?
X [scowling]: No I can’t see pink. You see I don’t wear pink, I don’t buy pink. Not this shade of pink. I’m buying red. This is a red shirt. NOT a pink shirt.
H [shrugging]: Ok X, it’s reddish pinkish pink. [smiling at the shop assistant] could you pack it please?

There was a time in my babyhood when I had a pink collection that resided in a large polythene bag. One of those shiny throw-away plastic bags that visiting aunties and uncles bring from abroad stuffed with all sorts of exotic gifts, which all Indians like to collect [Well all Indians in my family. So, I’m not slotting, I’m just telling.] Anyhow, it was much larger than me and it was pink. A toxic hot flushing, gushing pink, that had BIG PINK stamped across it in glittering disco letters. Into this bag went all manner of pink things. A used toothbrush, a crayon, dried up felt pens, a couple of coloured pencils, a grotesque shiny plastic egg, erasers, clips, bits of satin ribbon, dried up nail polish, plastic bottles. Any bit of discarded junk I could lay my hands on, as long as it was – yes, go on, say it – *PINK*. On days that I was particularly excited [and I was, in the Sibling’s words, “an easily excitable child”] I would drag it around everywhere – from the bedroom to the dining room, to the drawing room to greet guests and perhaps, if I liked their smiles, allow them a peek into my yum-scrum-piggy’s-bum poppinsy pink collection.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the only ice cream I ever ate till I was 14 was strawberry ice cream. And even today when I look at strawberry anything, it makes my heart do a tiny little skip and a hop and a twirly-go-round.

Predictably, my first nail polish too, was pink. A nice blushy rosy pink. I polished it off [how’s that for a smashing, skull numbing pun, eh? Not bad] it in less than a week. I spilt it, I sniffed it, I painted with it, I even carried it to school. There were blotches of rosy blushy pink all over my room, and for that one week the heavenly smell of pink was acetone.

Then there was this pink pig I once drew, that was the shining masterpiece of my babyhood. [okay, it’s reddish pink if you insist].

And of course my biggest fashion fantasy, since I was three, was this pair of pink corduroy bell bottoms. In fact I’d be matching them with blazing pink lip gloss and fussy shiny pink polyester shirts even as I type this if it hadn’t been for this one deeply scarring incident.

One day when I was 14, my father, with the kind of sighing, eyes-shut-because-it-must-be-done democracy all parents must exercise against their better judgement sometimes, because it is a good thing, said “all right H, this time it’s your turn to choose the colour of your room.” The sibling and I shared a room in those days. The sibling was an Elton John hating, 100%-in-Mathematics scoring genius, with a million boys kissing the ground she stepped on. A no-nonsense, arse-busting blue and grey lobbyist, with the ability to make those million boys wilt with a single sharp word. And I wrote diaries. I hadn’t a chance, I knew it, nevertheless, I replied valiantly under her sharply watchful eyes. “Errr, well umm, errr. Pink”.

The audacity. The shame. The terror.

For the next few years, I didn’t get to hear the end of it, long after that miserable pale pasty shade of nearly-white-pink [it had been mixed and remixed by a very nervous painter, under the Sibling’s severely uncompromising gaze] had gone six inches under various hues of grey, white and greyish whites.

For the longest time [till post-feminism became the concept, and the Sibling got a Master’s degree in it] I went completely underground with my pink fetish.

To cut the long of it much shorter, or as we say in these parts, to tie the pink ribbon on it, things have come a long way since. The Sibling now wears what in her words is “the perfect colour of nail polish”, a comely shade of pink. Happily, I too have revisited my passion for pink, albeit in a more controlled sort of way. I’m never going to own that pair of corduroys, but I’ve made sure my man wore an alluring shade of pinkish reddish pink.

So now tell me, you do understand what this means to me, right?

Yum scrum piggy’s bum.

That’s what it means.

Especially, since it’s from this very gifted, charming, passionate, prolific, engaging writer. A complete rockstar of a girl blogger who writes with the ease of a dolphin chugging beer between back flips, on topics so diverse, that it makes my head go tickety-boo with all the gay giddiness. [It must be the 7107 islands. I am almost certain.]

I simply cannot choose one single post that I like more than any others, because I really really like reading her, whether she’s talking about life in the Philippines, or about her family or about this really quirky, gory, gharsley comic strip she likes. But here’s one that’ll give you an insight to her vintage wit.

And here are the four rocking girl bloggers I’d like to pass this on to.

Barnsley girl: Another completely wicked Filipino blogger. She could put Margaret Thatcher to shame with her posts that are replete with scathing undercurrents of an utterly delicious wit that she delivers [this is where she score over Maggie] in the most sultry, can’t-be-bothered-to-be-stiff diva-ish tone.

Delhi divas: These girls can pick anything and turn it into an exhilarating journey of wondrous [self and otherwise] discovery. I mean, I’ve got to hand to someone who can make even the most embarrassing acne sprouting moments of an adolescence that is best forgotten seem like the most treasured memories of a lifetime.

Prude: A very fine discovery, her posts are gentle, thoughtful, and reflective in that soothing unburdened kind of way. Her writing, with its easy, non-sentimental, deft observations holds up a clear mirror to the honest and wonderful mind that she has.

AussiesNan: Post rocking girl blogger badge, I can only describe NanNan as a super-girl in a big pink cape flying with buckets of smiles and hugs to throw around, with her tightly ringed curls dancing gaily about her head like a fuzzy red halo, as she laughs and saves the day for many little girls and boys.

And now, to leave you with a fairytale ending. This rocking girl blogger badge happens to coincide, on this most fortuitous weekend, with the discovery of the perfect brick-red-pink nail polish for my toes that [so far] have invariably looked ghastly in EVERY shade of [almost] EVERY colour.

Yay for pinkish reddish pink.