50 shades of the unusual.

In the world of colours, there’s only one gray area: no one can vouch for the number of shades perceivable to mankind.

Because the self-pitied, feel only the blues; the intolerant, view everything in black and white; the printer, thinks of just CMYK; the child, cannot look beyond the rainbow; the internet, has a palette of 256 safe colours; and the computer, can detect nearly 16.7 million tints.

So where does the truth lie in the chromatic spectrum? Well, the staggering reality might leave us red faced as a recent research put the humanly observable colour count at a mind boggling 18 decillion (18 followed by 33 zeros)!

Despite this infinite ocean of vividity, it’s a pity that many of us are tongue tied when we have to reel out names of a hundred colours. My aim will be to expand your exotic quotient beyond lavender, lilac, turquoise, and tangerine.

Mountbatten Pink is a great name to start with. Invented by Louis Mountbatten (the last Viceroy of India), it’s a shade of pink that can help ships to camouflage their presence during the twilight period. It was actively used by British Royal Navy during the World War 2. For maximum impact, you can suggest this as the lipstick shade for your chick.

If that don’t impress her much, try Lust (a rich texture of red). Or gently urge her to buy an ‘Alice Blue’ gown. The back story being the pale tint of azure was in rage in America when Alice, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, made it famous.

Another way to appear cerebral is by injecting new colours into insipid conversations. Like, if your sister wants to streak her hair you can just flash your smart phone and suggest: Android Green. Or during a cricket match, you can just pose a rhetorical question: do you know that there’s a shade of green called Pakistan Green?

And if you want to come through as the Mensa types, you should probably flaunt your knowledge of Peru (dark brown), Fandango (deep fuchsia), Sinopia (red earth), Isabelline (pale grey yellow) and Gamboge (Buddhist monk saffron). That should make your pals go green with envy.