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wore khakis and had a crush on Data from Star Trek . He took clues from her closest friends when they visited her at work. They were Brown Girl brown; their approach to style, acquired mostly from Dynamite, Garage, or Forever 21, involved showing various degrees of skin and yet always appearing business-casual,as though they weren’t able to completely shed their parents’ traditionalism. They were professionals who dated only Muslim brown men and went to clubs that played hip hop music infused with some Bollywood. She really liked that one Nelly Furtado song.
    He was in a brown category that was generally frowned upon by other brown people, especially other brown parents: Alternative brown . This meant he wore vintage clothing, had his ears pierced, had blond streaks, and hung out with non-browns.
    In some ways, he was more brown than anyone he knew. When given the choice of restaurants to go to on his birthday, his craving for deep-fried cheese cubes mixed with peas trumped burgers or pizza. He listened to santoor on Saturdays when he cleaned his room and understood the complicated, often multi-storied significance behind most Hindu celebrations like Deepavali and Onam. He thought Sanskrit was the most beautiful language he had ever heard and found the constriction of English translations, which exposed the general apathy of English itself, deeply disappointing. “Prema” was so much more expansive and sacred than “love.”
    And yet, brown in and of itself, had not yet registered as a real colour to him. Brown was unremarkable, a non-colour, akin to a shade of grey. For he had been blinded by another colour: white. White expanded limitlessly and drained every other colour out until all that could be seen was
    whitefriendwhiteactorwhiteteacherwhiteneighbourwhiteinventorwhitestrangerwhiteactresswhitecoworkerwhitesingerwhiteprincipalwhitefriendwhiteactorwhiteteacherwhitecashierwhiteneighbourwhitestrangerwhiteserverwhitepostmanwhiteclassmatewhitebullywhiterockstarwhitefriendwhitefriendwhitekingwhitequeenwhiteteacherwhitemodelwhiteconquererwhitesaviourwhitewomanwhiteprimeministerwhitedoctorwhiterealestateagentwhiteneighbourwhitefriendwhiteprofessorwhitegodwhiteairstewardwhitemanwhitescientistwhitedentistwhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewwhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhite

White was almost every interaction he had, and through this relentless exposure, he learned to value it, serve it, aspire to it, his white bedroom walls plastered with white famous faces. This was where the true power of white resided.
    But something unexpected happened when he placed his brown next to hers, something that white worked so hard against.
    whitewhitewhitewhite        brownbrown        whitewhitewhitewhite
    In the absence of white, he could see colour.
    Your brown has more of a pink base than mine, he had observed the first time they held hands, still looking for answers to her origin in her skin.
    It’s true. And your brown has a yellowy tone to it, she said.
    I look jaundiced?
    She laughed and shoved him gently. No, no. You are golden.
    I am also darker than you …
    Your skin is perfect. Why would anyone want to be another colour? She kissed his cheek.
    Marvelling at her perfectly round chestnut cheeks, he couldn’thelp but agree. Falling in love with her brown had unexpectedly given his own skin new value, a new sheen.
    As they dug past the surface, they discovered their brownness was a map that only directed them closer, pointing to their abundance of commonalities and fascinating variations. She called lentils “dhar,” he called lentils “dhal.” His motherland was India; she was a child