When I Coloured The World Poem by Susanta Pattnayak

On the night before Holi
I never slept.
I lay beside the ticking clock
and wondered
why the sun was so late.

My pockets were heavy
with saved balloons and water colours,
my hands gripped bright pichkaari,
and I was filled with small, innocent dreams.

At dawn, I ran into the street
as if I owned the sky.
Every passer-by was my canvas,
every laugh a triumph.

I truly believed I was colouring the world.

Years carried me forward.
The gulal came in neat packets,
the greetings rehearsed,
the laughter scheduled between calls.

I still play, but carefully now—
a polite streak on the cheek,
a brief embrace,
a photograph before washing away.

Yet when I close my eyes,
I still feel that barefoot boy inside me
running without reason,
turning strangers into friends
with a splash of colour.

And then I turn to the news
and see another kind of red-
spreading across maps.
I wonder—
when did our colours turn into blood?

Still, every Holi morning,
I search for that first sunlight.
Not to stain this world of mine,
but to colour it gently
and make it a rainbow again.

©️ Susanta Pattnayak