Episode 04: Ansh
“Red sneakers are my favourite. Mum made me get black one’s instead. Why did she do that Didi?” “Probably because they were the best one’s.”
“But red one’s are the best ones’!” "Maybe, your mom thinks that the black ones are the best" "But they go on my feet!"
Ansh would wonder about the queer things adults said and did that made little sense to even as imaginative a mind as his but there was a lot that had to be done during the short walk to the park. Cosplaying a plane. Coming up with weirdest ways to get from point A to B (today, it was on one foot). Kicking stones. Threatening dogs. Stanning the coolest bicycle with adjustable gears he wanted more than the red sneakers.
All I wished was for my eight year old cousin to hurry along because the sun would set soon. I had to get to the park before that so I could capture this beauty in my lens. Peacefully. What a pity it would be to not have a still of this palette of a sky with colours so carelessly and yet so perfectly thrown together. As I was looking for the perfect frame to capture the most of this beautiful sky and some trees, this tween scurried not so quietly along a little behind me.
“Why don’t you go play with your friends now?” "Not with these black sneakers, I can't. They look like school shoes"
"They look amazing Ansh. Go play with your friends." “Please didi. I don’t want to. They'll make fun. Let me stay, I would even pose for you.”
His sweet eyes suddenly were so pitiful that I slowly let go of my hopes of capturing this jaw droppingly beautiful sunset with the longest sigh and finally said, “Why not” “Yes! See what I can do.” His hands and legs were now taking turns flying in the air as he tried to look really cool wrestling absolutely nothing. This was going to be a real challenge, aesthetically speaking. I looked around to find a suitable spot. There was a flower-bed just nearby and I imagined I could create something pretty with it.
“There, why don’t you hold that rose, the pink one like this. I’ll get the camera ready.” The perfect shot was coming to me. “What? “ I turned to find Ansh in a less than amused state.
I couldn’t suppress a smile seeing his face when he said “But why the pink one? Girls pose like that anyway . Boys do things like this” he argued flexing his non existent biceps one after the other like I saw it coming.
“Who told you that only girls pose like that?” “That’s just how it is. Don’t you even know that?” “I’ll tell you what I know. I see boys pose with all kinds of flowers all the time and it looks beautiful” His raised eyebrows told me that he was far from agreeing.
“But boys don’t need to be beautiful! Boys are smart. And handsome. And dashing". He threw his hands in the air evidently annoyed at the fact that I didn't even have my basics clear.
"Okay listen" continued Ansh, determined to make all the logistics of colors and gender clear to me, once and for all. "Whenever mum gets us pencil-boxes or backpacks, I get the blue one while Khushi picks the pink. That's the way it always has been."
"Yeah? And what about these stars all over your shorts? They look pink to me" "They are ninja stars, didi! Gosh. Other than this, boys like blue and pink belongs to girls”
"So what about all the other colors in the rainbow then? Who does yellow or red or green belong to?" "I don't know. Giraffes, Elephants and Aliens?"
"No, Ansh" I laughed out quite loudly at this. "That's not how this works. We all have the entire rainbow. And we can each pick the color we want. Nobody assigns you Pink or Blue anymore. You could be red or a green or a purple or every color or no color at all. It's up to you. But you cannot decide what color should anyone else choose. Remember how bad you felt about getting black sneakers when your choice was red?" Some of it made sense to him, some didn't.
"Red ones looked so cool. But a pink flower just looks ridiculous on boys, I know that" "Have you ever seen any guy posing with one before?" "No" "Then how did you decide it looks ridiculous"
"Umm" He was looking very hard for something to support his proposition but had no luck.
"I think you should see one first and then decide"
"Maybe. That would be fair I guess" I took my phone out and showed him an influencer's latest post where he was standinding near a similar flowerbed, flaunting very confidently the pink rose, tucked behind his ears. Ansh looked silently at the picture for a minute. To his disappointment, he could not find anything that looked funny about it. The flowers looked very beautiful and so did the man.
"Okay." He very hesitantly agreed "I'll do it. You wouldn't get off my back anyway"
On our way home, the sun had long set and it was getting dark. Whilst I was revelling quietly in what I had achieved and wording the perfect caption to go with this picture, Ansh was strangely quiet, as if in deep thought. It's difficult for kids to wrap their heads around something that brings their whole conception crashing down like this. As strange as it seems, we are still using the outdated moulds of societal norms to shape these tender minds. As adults, we can see through the thick fabric of biases that the information fed to us is covered under, our kids cannot. To them, that is the epitome of absolute truth and will be the foundation of their ideology. Why are we still handing out half truths and cooked opinions? Why do we still let the worn out rules define our basic concepts about the smallest things in life? Why is categorisation into the binaries like that of pink and blue still not ridiculous? Contemplating on all these why's, I didn't quite realise when we took the last turn and the house presented itself. Under the yellow veil of lights, waiting for the festivities it looked patient as a bride.
"I can't wait to burn firecrackers and with it all of China", yelled Ansh, breaking into a sprint, excited at the sight of home. I decided to let this one go for now. I have the picture and there's still a few days until Diwali.