She was helping little Sonu complete a painting for a drawing competition organized in her office for the young children of employees. Today was the last day to submit entries for “The India of my dreams.'' Sonu was about to complete her painting. “Ma, come, sit with me, please.” If it were not for her daughter’s relentless requests…she was in no mood for colours this morning. She was in fact hooked on to the news, while pretending to work. Reluctantly, however, she moved closer to her little one.
A warm smile flashed across her daughter’s face as she took the child in her lap. “Look!” said Sonu excitedly pointing at her drawing. On the television, a woman clad in saffron attire was spewing hatred in her ears. The clip from the Dharm Sansad had gone viral. She did not know which out of the two she was doing absent-mindedly – listening to the woman or looking at her daughter’s painting. In the latter, six or seven human figures stood out against a beautiful backdrop. Men, women, children, against fields that glittered emerald green under the melting orange of an evening sky.
Were the colours too warm or the words too violent, she did not know. But she struggled to keep her moist eyes focused on these tiny, all white human figures, unmistakably consumed by their respective religious identities – a skull cap, a headscarf, a shiny cross around the neck, a sindoor-filled parting, a turban... Each with the most innocent smile and outstretched hands holding those of an unknown other on either side. The orange and the green and the white all seemed a bit smudged then as she let a tear well up her eyes and slide...