OK. It’s time to play a childhood game. A creative exercise!

Remember when you were given pictures to colour and many colours to colour it based on your imagination.

I am going to give you sentences instead of pictures and a choice of seven colours- White, Black, Light Brown, Dark Brown, Yellow , Red and a special option- No colour.

These sentences define individuals you see in your daily life and you can colour them to see what colours you think portray them the best. More than one colour can be used to colour one sentence and please be honest to yourself as you are your own judge.

Ready? Let’s go-

1. A local, naturalized citizen of our country.
2. An immigrant, a foreigner, a burden.
3. A racist and a person with unacceptable superiority complex.
4. A human most likely to excel in sports and athletics.
5. A human most likely to be associated with any or all of drugs, crime and poverty.
6. A human most likely to be fond of noodles and dumplings.
7. A human most likely to have a funny accent, be an introvert and perhaps a nerd in College.
8. A human most likely to be fond of spices or curries and bizarre practices.
9. A human most likely to be associated with low paying jobsor businesses like small motels, gas stations and convenience stores.
10. A human most likely to be on Welfare or disability.
11. A human most likely to be comfortable with breaking laws, shortcuts and corruption.
12. A human with a flowing beard.
13. A religiousfanatic.
14. A human with intolerant views towards women or gays.
15. A human associated with rich jobs, practices and businesses- the top echelon.

Interesting? So you could give different colours like White, Black, Dark Brown, et al to different sentences!

Let’s analyse the results!

If your answers to 14 or more were ‘No Colour’ then you are diagnosed as either God or God like, or a child whose mind has yet not been programmed and controlled or ‘Colour Blind’ worth recognition as a true global citizen.

For the rest, I am afraid you suffer from a highly infectious disease which goes straight from the eyes to the mind and affects all future actions with regards to the individual in whom you notice that colour. It’s called- ‘Stereotype-o-phobia’.

This disease starts taking early roots in the childhood when a family happily transmits it to their children as a part of the child’s learning process. Then it starts growing stronger as the child interacts with other acquaintances that come in contact. Finally it reaches proportions of a fully grown tumour which blurs the vision and makes the person fully colour sensitive when the person comes in contact with society, politicians and the powerful who know how to use the spread of this disease to their advantage.

This leads to perceptions and generalisations being made for the colour that you see in the other person and the trait it shows that colour has. You cannot but associate that person as being that you have known him to be and hence you start building relationship based not on his true self but what you expect him to be.

While you may become extra sweet, nice and polite talking to the person with other colour, in reality it is your fears and mistrust which is playing inside and building a wall between the two which cannot be broken.

In most of your interactions with that person you go this much and not beyond lest the winds from the other side may blow your side apart. You may talk to him, work with him, discuss issues with him, but when it comes to relationships and friendships, the same should be limited to the people of your own colour.

For the people who think that the time has come to break these invisible boundaries and cross each other’s domain to enrich our lives with the warmth of brotherhood and true love, it just takes one small step and one action-

Become ‘Colour Blind’ and a true child of God who even though makes us colourful to make a beautiful human rainbow, yet showers his love equally to one and all.