Click Here to read the prequel.
Saloni was on a trip with her parents and their friends in Chicago, USA. The weather was a perfect 21°C to roam around the streets. The place attracted a lot of crowd at this time of the year. She observed the crowd. It was a great diverse mixture. Everyone could be seen happily enjoying in their respective groups. The smiles making the environment even more pleasant. But the curious Saloni found something odd about the group dynamics. She observed that females were playing with different different toddlers in the garden. But she couldn’t spot any male playing with any other toddler but their own. The different ethnic group were grouped together, their were hardly any exception to it. The adults were not even glancing towards differentially racial groups, but their children hardly cared about that. The toddlers would look at each other, reached out their hands to touch each other from the distance. Their eyes seems tp say: ‘Come play with me, I am bored playing with my parents alone’. Although the adults would politely acknowledge each other in certain situations, but there was no warmth expressed.
Saloni then observed her parents also moving towards what seemed to be an Indian group. She wanted to play with everyone, as she used to play in her home. To run for one ball, or to catch one person by chaining their hands together. She asked her mom, ‘Can I play with that guy over there?’ . Her mum politely said, ‘Lets play with those Indian people there. We don’t know these people.’
‘But we don’t know those Indian people as well.’, replied Saloni.
Her mum thought about it a moment and then gave her hand to his father.
She didn’t like that nobody addressed her query. She thought that Akarsh would maybe understand her. She asked for his father’s cell to call Akarsh.
She knew her neighbour Akarsh was a curious soul and might help her out.
She narrated the whole incident to Akarsh. Akarsh had never experienced such a scenario.
He thought for a bit and he knew from his past experience that he needed to go to sleep. As soon as he dozed off, the voice called out to him.
“What is it this time?”, the voice asked.
“Why is there a differential treatment given to people of different complexion.”, Akarsh asked.
“We didn’t design it this way. Different complexion was supposed to provide diversity to the earth, as opposed to the diversity we seek in the name of religion, caste and creed nowadays.”
“Then why only so few complexion, why couldn’t we have more so that nobody can judge any other color.”
“Lets try that out.”, the shadow said playfully.
The next day Saloni came into the park. She saw people with plethora of colors on and around them. Everybody’s faces were so colorful, that you could hardly recognise what complexion they possessed before. She saw her parents confused as to which group to join now. Seeing her mom so confused, she reached out to her, hugged her and placed her palm over her mum’s cheeks. Her mother’s face started taking a purplish color, as her confusion started reducing. Smile returned to both’s faces: the mother understanding what had transpired, Saloni observing that she had so many people to play with. The colors added what the complexion couldn’t in years.
At a distance, a smiling shadow saw the colorful people playing, appreciating the unbiased and colourful mind of the kids.