True colours..

We are surrounded by festivals and celebrations, and colours associated with them add a special touch. Every culture or community associates certain emotions with certain colours. While some may carry happy connotations, some also carry the 'blues'. But each one brings with it, its own undertones. The cheery and joyous colour yellow represents jealousy, betrayal and weakness to the French. In China, yellow stands for anything related to pornography. On the other hand, it signifies bravery and wealth among the Japanese and Christians associate yellow with Easter as it's the colour of the yolk, which symbolises new life and regeneration that the festival marks.

White almost instantly connects with peace and purity. Catholic brides wear white gowns that symbolises elegance and light. On the contrary, white is a colour of mourning, sadness and bad luck in China, Korea and Hindus wear it to funerals.

The Yin counterpart of white is the colour black. While it is the colour of sophistication and formality, and the hedonistic party with the Little Black Dress, it also represents mourning, bad luck, death, evil and mystery. Hindus avoid wearing black during auspicious occasions such as weddings. Interestingly, the moolavar idols in several South Indian temples are made from black stone which are anointed with water, oil and milk. Decorating the idol with ash and sandalwood paste is a common practice in these temples; the black colour of the stone enhances the contrast and beautifies the look of the idol. Among several Eastern and Asian communities, it represents masculinity, health, wealth and prosperity.

In the Western countries, the colour green is a sign of growth, luck, environment and money. It's also the colour of envy and jealousy. However, green is also a Christmas colour representing the ivy, holly and mistletoe. In some of the Eastern countries, it represents youth and fertility Maharashtrian brides' dark green bangles and green coloured sari, represent fertility. However, the colour represents infidelity in China. Green in Islam has many sacred representations because of references in the Holy Quran. And thanks to the environment, It is also the symbol of nature and life.

Red symbolises love and passion as well as danger and anger. It's the colour of Christmas, where in medieval times rood screens, which separates the nave from the chancel of churches, were painted red. Coco Cola then sealed the deal by introducing their red Santa Claus. In the Eastern countries, it's associated with good luck, prosperity, happiness and celebration. Most North-Indian and Bengali brides don red at weddings for it represents fertility, prosperity, sensuality and a long life. Also for several Indian communities, red is an auspicious colour, seen in abundance in almost all the festivities and celebrations.

Orange, associated with the harvest and autumn seasons as well as with creativity, is used extensively during Thanksgiving and Halloween. Among Hindus, it carries a sacred connotation for it's associated with divinity, representing fire, symbolic of purity. In the Chinese and Japanese cultures, orange portrays health, prosperity and courage, but in Egypt, it represents mourning and loss.

However, chromotherapy an alternate psychological healing practice called colour therapy — goes beyond these cultural boundaries. It studies the energy of every colour and uses this knowledge to treat different ailments. So pink is used to strengthen relationships, red increases power and black provides protection and shielding. "But red cannot be assigned to a person running a fever because as a warm colour, it will inflate the fever...", says Mumbai based chromotherapist Parin Dharod, whose clients can wear clothes or eat fruits and vegetables of the colour prescribed to them as part of the therapy. "More the number of colours combined, the higher will be the level of various energies achieved", explains Dharod, hinting at the vast possibilities of healing at the physical and metaphysical levels.