My Unrelenting Obsession With The Colors of India

I’m not the first to observe the incredible, unnerving feeling that you’ve stepped into a whole new world upon entering India. The heat sits heavy on your chest. The horns and hollers ring in your ears. The smells don’t just wake you up, but make you feel acutely alive. And the colors. The colors are a mesmerizing kaleidoscope. The thing dreams are made of. A kind of technicolor I didn’t know existed.

But what makes the colors of India so special? Well, I think there are two factors that make the colors of India so unique — the light and the saturation. Here, even the most harsh, high-noon light glows. There’s not one part of the day where I’m not fascinated by a shadow or chasing a light beam. I even found myself admiring the way the sunlight refracts through the smog.

The colors of India themselves are unique for their saturation. It’s not about being bright, but bold. I’ve never seen more red reds, or more pure blues. I’ve never admired pink the way I have on a crumbling facade, or the way I could never look at yellow the same after seeing it in the most buttery tone on an ancient stepwell. More than that, it is perhaps that India is not made of pops of colors, but that India is made upon layers and layers of color. Colors I want to peel back forever. Because of this, I think India will be one of those places I visit again and again in my lifetime. And to be honest, I don’t think that would even be enough to satisfy my obsession.