Pink - A Tribute

I always thought that pink had to be a girl fetish. But I will tell you that secretly I used to love the color. Right from the days when I was a baby, I had one of those pink, soft bedspread which used to mollycoddle on me Winnie the Pooh.

In fact so much was this awkwardness effect of pink on me that during my college days I could never bring myself to hear one of my favorite chartbusters – "There you go" sung by a budding rockstar by the name of Alecia Moore aka Pink. She went on to win the Grammy with Christina Aguilera, rapper Lil' Kim and Mýa for the soundtrack of the film Moulin Rouge, another of my favorites called Lady Marmalade. And let me remind you that these were times when you were at your vulnerable worst simply because the hostel favorites were the trance tunes from Pulse – coincidentally from the stables of Pink Floyd. Very frankly I could not really comprehend what they sung till I went into my first stages of inebriation –a more of a Mumbai phenomenon, the day we all got flooded. Yes, with lights all out, amputated from the rest of the world, I really found that Pink Floyd really does make sense.

But 2009 has been special, yes very very special as far as pink is concerned.

We started off the year with the Jane McGrath day, for which for the first time, the customary new year Sydney test started a day late on the 3rd of January. SCG turned pink for the test, the Australian team posed in baggy pinks as the SCG turned pink for the third Test against South Africa and the SCG Trust renamed day three of the game, Jane McGrath Day, in honour of Glenn McGrath's late wife and in support of the McGrath Foundation, which works to increase awareness of breast cancer and raise money to fund breast cancer nurses.

Closer home our home grown bahu liberalized into Pink Panther 2, learnt from her past fashion gaffes and created furores at the premier, complimented by Abhishek Bachchan in a pink tie.

Talking of pink, and without the mention of Mr. Muthalik would be incomplete on this Valentines eve post. Now everyone and their mothers know that on 24th of January, certain responsible citizens of the country came to a pub in Mangalore and deduced that women at pubs were wanton, lecherous organisms and manhandled them with zoomed in and highlighted focus on national primetime television of anatomical details of such groping.

What followed is not new, the Shri Ram Sene, a new culture blasphemy watchdog outfit came out and resounded that this was against what the Indian culture stood for. Indian women who visit pubs and wear short dresses were too emancipated to be in their senses and hence the action. To take matters to fiefdom they uttered diar consequences to Valentine day couples with threats of surgical strikes and pin pointed efforts to marry any such couples sighted.

Without going into the mnemonics, I present to you the ramifications that this created:

• A female colleague of mine was supposed to go for a meeting with a lawyer at a popular café. Within seconds of the ultimatum she received a call saying that the meeting stood cancelled for the day. The lawyer being married did not want to take the risk.
• A cousin was supposed to meet a prospective marriageable partner for a date. Well that's definitely off, since although they would or could tie the knot, they are not in such a wee bit of hurry, you know.
• Many of my close associates have started carrying their marriage certificates along with them, just in case you are caught with a female acquaintance, so much so, that some of the forgetful kinds have taken snaps of the same on their mobiles just in case the originals get lost in all the confusion.
  

And as a respite came the pink revolution. An innovative and boisterous response called the pink chaddi campaign. The campaign undermined the changing social thought. Women came out in hordes and donated pink panties for the cause to be collected at various centers and to be sent to the Ram Sene chieftain. The Ram Sene tried to put up a brave face by saying that they would retort all such panties with sarees with their resolve strengthened.

But with the growing commotion and the sidewalk pitched battle between Ms. Renuka Chowdhury and the National Child and Women Welfare enquiry committee, which was set up to investigate the Mangalore incident and which derided the pub owners instead of what was really wanted, things started getting beyond control. It was then that the Ram Sene thought of postponing matters till quieter times especially with the election looming large. So for now apart from green and saffron providing the religious tinge, pink has left its mark on the center stage.

Things have not stopped on here. Another group of neo liberalists who claimed the pink chaddi campaign to be headline hogging and non secular being aimed only for ladies. In response to the same, they launched the pink condom campaign to maintain the wanton quotient for ladies.

What all this has done is brought about a new texture in our social fabric. May be this gets lost as a fervor of triviality in the gamut of larger things. But maybe this gets etched in our hearts as one of the largest female outcries for liberation in India after Sati. Women's emancipation has never ever received a bigger canvas as women stood and cried hoarse for each other and have expressed solidarity to go out in droves to pubs and celebrate Valentines day.

So much so that, the young flower seller today was seen crying to his vendor over his mobile, "abe 500 pink gulab stems bhej, laal ki demand kam hai isbaar, hisaab barabar hona mangta" (send me 500 stems of pink roses, the demand for red is less, the counts should be exact).

So to ladies who would be sipping their Negronis or Jack Roses, here's a toast with one of my all time favorites to go with it (oh and forget the sparks around you, whoever makes them, they are just trying to distract attention from people ogling at you):

Pink- its my new obsession
Pink its not even a question,
Pink, on the lips of your lover, cause
Pink is the love you discover

Pink as the bing on your cherry
Pink cause you are so very
Pink its the color of passion
cause today it just goes with the fashion

Pink it was love at first sight
Pink when I turn out the light
Pink gets me high as a kite
And I think everything is going to be all right
No matter what we do...

Tonight you could be my flamingo
coz pink is the new kinda of lingo
Pink like a deco umbrella
Its kink - but you dont ever tell her

Pink it was love at first sight, and
Pink when I turn out the light
Pink gets me high as a kite
And I think everything is going to be all right
No matter what we do tonight

I want to be your lover
I wanna wrap you in rubber
As pink as the sheets that we lay on
Pink its my favorite crayon, yeah

Pink it was love at first sight
Pink when I turn out the light
Pink its like red but not quite
And I think, everything is going to be all right
No matter what we do tonight
-Aerosmith