The colour ‘Green’

An Article by Natasha Bhatia

Hello there, dear reader

Here’s a reflection I’ve been holding onto for a bit.

Sometimes I sit and wonder…. about the colour green. In ways that feel almost ridiculous to admit out loud.

Because it sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

Green.

A colour we were all taught before we were old enough to question anything. The leaves are green. The trees are green. The grass is green. It was presented to us as fact, the same way gravity or rain or sunlight is presented as fact. Something objective. Something shared.

And for most of my life, I accepted it that way without hesitation.

But the longer I sat with the idea of colour itself, the more fragile that certainty began to feel.

Because when I say green, I am pointing toward something I experience entirely within my own mind. And when you say green, you are doing the exact same thing. We use the same language, respond to the same objects, nod along at the same descriptions…. but there is still no way for me to step inside your perception and confirm that the same shade of green I have known my entire life is the same shade of green you do.

They say the human eye can interpret more than a million shades of a colour, but not one of them will confirm the way I interpret it is the same way you do.

Not because I am different, but because perhaps it means something different to you. Perhaps it means something unique to all of us.

And I find this thought so incredibly fascinating.

Because suddenly colour stops feeling universal and starts feeling deeply intimate.

What if your green feels warmer than mine?
What if mine feels darker?
What if the green I experience as soft and earthy appears sharper and brighter inside your mind?

There is something almost overwhelming about realising that two people can look at the exact same tree and still be having completely private experiences with it internally.

And green especially feels alive to me in a way I cannot fully explain.

Physically. Emotionally. Sensorially.

Some greens feel dense and ancient, like forests that existed long before human language ever did. Some feel wet. Humid. Breathing. Others feel artificial and overstimulating, like fluorescent lights buzzing inside supermarket aisles at midnight.

And then there is the green sunlight creates when it passes through leaves.

That colour stays with me every single time…. because it feels holy.

The way the world briefly becomes stained in soft green-gold light… quiet, filtered, almost submerged. It does not feel like “a colour” in those moments. It feels like an atmosphere. Like reality itself has shifted texture for a few seconds.

And no scientific explanation has satisfied me, till now.

Because yes, technically, colour is just light interpreted by the brain. Wavelengths. Optics. Biology.

But that explanation feels so emotionally insufficient compared to the actual experience of seeing it.

Because green does not merely register itself inside me.

It does something to me. And maybe I am a little passionate - but it alters the feeling of a space.
The emotional temperature of a moment.
The texture of memory itself.

And maybe that is what fascinates me most about colour in general.

That it exists somewhere between science and feeling.

Something measurable, yet entirely personal.
Something explainable, yet impossible to fully translate.

Because maybe “green” wasn’t truly a shared experience after all.

Maybe it was only ever a shared word for millions of private experiences none of us will ever completely access in one another.

Thank you for reading, and reflecting with me. It means so much.

Until we meet again, with the next reflection:)

Nat.