Review By Harsimran Kaur

White is comforting. I now see a flicker of incandescent glow striking through the shadows getting dissolved on the white wall; how dutifully the ‘white’ absorbs the acceptance? The union is perfectly synchronized; the shadow no longer a shadow but an artistic stroke of impugned leaves withered by the storm, now lit by the bright Sun painting its impunity on the white wall. White always seems distinct and directive.

• Why ‘white’ follows a trail of faint pebbles on the road convenient enough to draw a journey back?
• The scribble of black on ‘white paper’ reflects of an unfinished business; to ink the buried emotions in the luminosity of existence.

The soul is white too! Not black or brown; not red or yellow. Have you ever thought why we all dress in hues of colors when the dim fragility of conscious always has to be clean as ‘white’? The soul shivers behind the parietal; white no longer white but colored with disoriented pride.

‘White’ is peace. So, which color is conflict? Maybe, ‘white’ in its impropriety! ‘White’ can also be disagreeable when it is metamorphosed by the black laden dust, or the mountain of white flour is beaten by the indisputable egg allegretto to rob it off its texture. ‘White’ then does not remain ‘white’ but is still ‘white’ in its transitory imperfection. ‘White’ is thus a flow, an indelible flow of clarity; it is an importunate stream of embracing humanity; it is a reflection of us—our conscious.

Often stoic lessons are often embedded in the stories of sabotage and grief. Often, tales are a manifestation of our surroundings, and then we sieve morals from the reprehensible. We try to make a compound analogy of life, and what if the color ‘white’ helps us to understand the recondite?

Han Kang is the author of ‘The White Book’ and the recipient of 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. In true spirit, she reflects on the philosophy of color and its significance in our assessment of life. ‘White’ can be virtuous and at the same time can be melted fragment of formidability.

Going back to the book and its contemplative ‘white’ stories, the one with the ‘white door’ is a metaphor for purity, though over the years, coarse blemishes have punctured its persistency to be without guilt. Have we ever looked at our reflection in the mirror? Do we see colors or just a bemused soul in solidarity with its uniqueness? Colors don’t matter; what we really want to see is an impeccable being as clear as ‘white’.

‘White’ is also an undiluted color, quite incomprehensible but carrying a noticeable familiarity around. Have you ever walked past strangers, aren’t their conversations like white pearls with an imaginary glint of imperfection? Inaccessible but a melody of the unknown; ‘White’ is just like that’; all clean whispers!

‘The White Book’ is a balm to the wounded heart. It is a rejoice of ‘grief’ and a run down through memories. The author, in retrospect, reminisces the death of her baby sister after two hours of her birth; she is wrapped around a swaddling band that becomes a white coffin for her. She is bereft of the breast milk; the ‘white’ sentiment flowing conspicuously but now is an improbable tyrant.     

The ‘white’ also represents the healing power of the salt; the ‘white’ is the ambivalent moon losing its paramouncy to the proding panjandrum of the white clouds. The author compares sleet to an irreplaceable fortune or an indelible misery that would anyways fall as a natural discipline.  The snow, the snowflakes, the snowmist, the fist & the frost, have all a story to tell; an arabesque of ‘white melody’ sung a cappella.

We all see stillness in ‘white’; observe the ‘white hair’ to leave behind the uncertainties and the ‘white pills’ easing out the disoriented pain. The ‘white bone’ on the X-ray is an intrusive parallel to the lives we lead; rambunctious from outside and still from inside. Many such reflections in ‘The White Book’ are a testimony to the warrior the color ‘White’ is.

TAKE AWAY

Wonderfully crafted on the ‘white’ cutting board…