What Silence Has Always Meant to Me: I was playing a game with my family a few nights ago where we had to identify the colour that immediately came to mind along with an emotion. Grief has been said to be grey. Naturally, anger was red. Black was my brother’s quiet choice. My response was “White”.
Everyone looked in my direction.
I knew that I was no longer playing.
Because silence has always been white to me. Not the milky skies or the calming white of cotton sheets. Not even the brides in white on magazine covers. The cool kind, that is. The unspoken kind. That kind of white that creeps into a widow’s ironed saree folds, fills a hospital corridor at two in the morning, or lies softly in the crusted corner of a shroud.
The first colour we are surrounded by is white. The soft fabric inside the cradle embodies this colour. The wedding gown, the school uniform, and the baptism gown. The colour of arrival. But it is also the last thing we wear. the Kafan. The white flag means surrender. The discharge slip is never discussed. We are covered in white from the moment we breathe until we die. We continue to think of it as just a colour.
But whiteness is rarely a sign of innocence. It’s lovely. There is no sound. It hides things too well. White, for instance, is used in hospitals to make pain seem sterile. Blood does not always flow crimson; it can disappear into white walls, white gloves, and white linens. White is the flag of surrender, but we also associate it with tranquillity. A white cloth marks the end of religious battles. So do broken conversations. In many ways, white is not a sign of healing but rather of the point at which we stop fighting.
The phrase “khoon safed hona”, which translates to “his blood turned white”, is used in Urdu. It’s more than just betrayal. It stands for emotional frostbite. That moment when love smiles warmly at you but gets cold. We also talk about the white lie known as safaid jhoot. At first glance, it seems innocuous, but if it spreads, it could be disastrous. Our language somehow recognises what our culture often denies: white does not always equate to truth. Occasionally it simply means that the lie was sufficiently well-written to be taken seriously.
I think about that a lot. White has been promoted to us as a calming colour. tidy. Right. The ideal of femininity is supposed to be embodied in a wedding gown. But the widow’s white, too. When a bride stands alone, the same fabric that showcases her beauty also conceals her identity. The first is spectacle. Silence is the second choice. Perhaps that is my biggest concern. White is used to blend in and stand out. We wear that colour to stand out and cover up our pain.
It’s astounding how much violence can go unnoticed when wearing white, white ceremonies, and white beds. White borders on papers that abruptly say goodbye. A white envelope with bad news inside. A boarding card signals an unexpected departure. Clean killings don’t always bleed. Some are clinical. Be quiet. Clean. That doesn’t lessen their cruelty.
I remember this line from the ghazal by Syed Agha Ali Mehr:
“ہے ابتدٔا دہر سےرخت کفن سفید”
From the beginning of time, the shroud has been white.
We know this. This is something we’ve always known. However, we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about how silent a colour is. The texture of sadness. There is a gleam to even surrender.
I discover that most of my memories are covered in white when I comb through them. The fabric of my school shirt is beautiful cotton. A family trip, which we never revisited, left behind salt-licked beach foam and lace. A white chalk drawing of a teacher’s displeasure. In my hand, the white of the frozen snow felt like satin, but it turned to salt. Where I wanted to forget, white kept popping up.
White, they say, is the colour of heaven. Sometimes, though, it feels as frigid as death. Marble tombstones, heartless angel statues, and frozen items that won’t thaw are examples of it. It is indeed lovely, but far away. Inaccessible.
White was the beginning, I thought. A new beginning. Now, though, I wonder if it’s just the distance between things we never dared to say out loud. The canvas in front of a story we’re afraid to depict. We hurriedly closed the journal page.
I’m still attempting to understand what ‘white’ actually means. Does it promise peace? Or the price of performing? Is it the desire for clarity or the fear of being messy and genuine?
I have no solutions. I have carried this feeling of being white with me all my life, through rituals, ceremonies, and uniforms. I kept going through silences. I told the truth to dress up. I said goodbye to it, but I haven’t opened it yet.
White isn’t just a colour. It’s full.
The things I had swallowed filled me up.
I swallowed my words.
I didn’t say my prayers out loud.
When I think of stillness tonight, I don’t hear darkness or grey. I hear white. It is the loudest silence I know.
