What Shade of Brown are You?

Shades of Brown

I discovered last night that my skin colour is a mix of bistre, sepia and raw umber.

I was writing a poem to someone very special when I came upon the need to use a word that said “brown” but in a more specific way. I wanted to describe skin colour of a particular shade and I needed a word that captured the exact tint of brown I meant.

So I zipped across to Google land. The search for “shades of brown” took me into a whole new world of colour.

Wikipedia has thirty-four different pages talking about brown, THIRTY different shades of it.

I also- quite coincidentally- came across a play written and performed by Rani Moorthy
(directed by Linda Marlowe)- and entitled “Shades of Brown” that looks at how the lives of every single person- past and present is affected by their particular shade of brown.

The coincidence is this: Rani was in Harare last week performing at HIFA in the hilarious one woman play entitled “Curry Tales” (I’ll be posting pictures from this and other play later on) Imagine that.

“Around the globe,” reads the introduction to the play in part, “money and time is poured into tanning or bleaching. From a South African albino to a skin-bleaching Indian bride, Rani, with her celebrated mix of warm and powerful story telling, transforms into funny and poignant characters who share an ironic kinship through the one thing they cannot hide or hide from - their skin.”

Neither black nor white nor yellow. Just different shades of beautiful brown. What’s your shade?

:: “Shades of Brown” colour palette from www.wikipedia.com

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