"Ma.... I drew I drew", he ran to his mother chanting loudly.
He was five years of age. Art and painting were never his cup of tea. He hated it. He could not draw circles, at least they never looked like one. Drawing was the last thing he would ever do to pass time but today it was different. He liked hitting streets and wandering on roads but since it was a scorching summer afternoon that was ruled out. He had not made new friends to whom he could go, so he stayed home and drew.
His mom stared at the picture he had drawn. It was typical primary school material. Sharp angular lines made the mountains. A small ellipse in between which could be assumed to be the sun. Many big trees with large irregular leaves. A standard house with a door and two small windows. A few birds scattered and uniformly distributed.
It was an okay effort. The sun was colored bright yellow. Leaves were large and looked fine but something was wrong. She looked back at his smiling face in disbelief. She grabbed his hand and dragged him outside. She showed him the large banyan tree near by. She asked many times if he could find a basic difference. The difference was obvious, far too obvious to remain unnoticed. But he smiled and said I see it the way I have drawn it. She saw the picture back. The trees were different, there was a striking contrast. She could not understand what was the matter. All leaves were painted brown and the tree trunk was painted green.
So that was how I discovered nineteen years back that I was a colorblind. I never felt bad being one in-fact I liked it. Its kind of cool you know.
"You got to be kidding me right.....Ohk tell me what color is that car over there and that house and this shirt." These are the typical responses I get when I happen to disclose my so called disability to anyone. Most people do not understand what color blindness is all about. And so I write this post which probably might help you all understand what exactly is colorblindness.
To put into perspective, how would you feel if someone told you that there are sounds that natural human ear cannot listen to and probably cannot differentiate between.Its something similar. Colorblinds cant differentiate between few colors. Now this does not bother us for sure. We just cant imagine the existence of those colors just the way you don't care about those ultrasound frequencies. Actually when I think about it now, its one less thing to worry about while choosing your shirts and stuff.
Some Science Stuff (Skip if uninterested)
So basically your eye has a screen (Retina) where the eye lens creates images of what you are looking at. Now to read these images, there are cone cells and rod cells. The Rod cells tell the brain about the intensity of the image (For science enthusiasts the number of photons coming in) and the Cone cells tell the brain about the color of the image (Again for science lovers the wavelength of the photons coming in).
Now let's talk about these cone cells more. There are three basic types Red, Green and Blue. As you guessed it you are a colorblind if one of these is not doing their job properly.
So there are 3 broad categories -
Monochromacy - You got just a single type of cone. Basically everything is black and white to you.
Dichromacy - Two types of cone cells exits and hence you cannot identify one of the three spectrum
Anamolous Trichromacy - All three types exist but one of the cones isn't working properly.
Some perspective on how we see the world
PS: Apologies for the slightly longish post on a topic which is pretty obscure.
He was five years of age. Art and painting were never his cup of tea. He hated it. He could not draw circles, at least they never looked like one. Drawing was the last thing he would ever do to pass time but today it was different. He liked hitting streets and wandering on roads but since it was a scorching summer afternoon that was ruled out. He had not made new friends to whom he could go, so he stayed home and drew.
His mom stared at the picture he had drawn. It was typical primary school material. Sharp angular lines made the mountains. A small ellipse in between which could be assumed to be the sun. Many big trees with large irregular leaves. A standard house with a door and two small windows. A few birds scattered and uniformly distributed.
It was an okay effort. The sun was colored bright yellow. Leaves were large and looked fine but something was wrong. She looked back at his smiling face in disbelief. She grabbed his hand and dragged him outside. She showed him the large banyan tree near by. She asked many times if he could find a basic difference. The difference was obvious, far too obvious to remain unnoticed. But he smiled and said I see it the way I have drawn it. She saw the picture back. The trees were different, there was a striking contrast. She could not understand what was the matter. All leaves were painted brown and the tree trunk was painted green.
So that was how I discovered nineteen years back that I was a colorblind. I never felt bad being one in-fact I liked it. Its kind of cool you know.
"You got to be kidding me right.....Ohk tell me what color is that car over there and that house and this shirt." These are the typical responses I get when I happen to disclose my so called disability to anyone. Most people do not understand what color blindness is all about. And so I write this post which probably might help you all understand what exactly is colorblindness.
To put into perspective, how would you feel if someone told you that there are sounds that natural human ear cannot listen to and probably cannot differentiate between.Its something similar. Colorblinds cant differentiate between few colors. Now this does not bother us for sure. We just cant imagine the existence of those colors just the way you don't care about those ultrasound frequencies. Actually when I think about it now, its one less thing to worry about while choosing your shirts and stuff.
Some Science Stuff (Skip if uninterested)
So basically your eye has a screen (Retina) where the eye lens creates images of what you are looking at. Now to read these images, there are cone cells and rod cells. The Rod cells tell the brain about the intensity of the image (For science enthusiasts the number of photons coming in) and the Cone cells tell the brain about the color of the image (Again for science lovers the wavelength of the photons coming in).
Now let's talk about these cone cells more. There are three basic types Red, Green and Blue. As you guessed it you are a colorblind if one of these is not doing their job properly.
So there are 3 broad categories -
Monochromacy - You got just a single type of cone. Basically everything is black and white to you.
Dichromacy - Two types of cone cells exits and hence you cannot identify one of the three spectrum
Anamolous Trichromacy - All three types exist but one of the cones isn't working properly.
Some perspective on how we see the world
