Colours

Yes, Holi’s around the corner. After considering illegal substances, interesting spring and harvest rituals and spaced-out people in the song ‘Jai jai siva sankar’ as options, we finally settled on a colours quiz. I told you we were adventurous and kind (this is an easy set!).

1 Technically, what colour are the Lipizzaner horses, the most famous performing horse breed in the world?

2 Which ’80s punk rock band, who are still very big, decided on their name because of their fondness for marijuana?

3 What sobriquet were the military unit, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, given after a particularly brave effort during the battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War?

4 Still on nineteenth-century history. Which colour was named in celebration of a French victory against the Austrians in 1859?

5 Which ’80s Pulitzer-winning novel relates the story of a 14-year-old black girl named Celie raised in the American South?

6 Connect Air Force, Tiffany, Cambridge and Cornflower. The list is by no means exhaustive, of course.

7 Which late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century painter was so fond of the shade vermillion that eventually, it also came to be known by his name?

8 A greyish shade of red was named after a variety of rose, which in turn was named from an ancient Asian city. Identify the shade, and/or the city.

9 What infamous substance would you get if you mixed equal parts of the herbicides 2, 4, 5-T and 2, 4-D?

10 Which acclaimed film of the late ’70s was loosely based on an incident that occurred in a town near Dhanbad in December 1975, with the character modelled on Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim?

Answers

1. Greys. Most horses which look white in colour are actually greys.

2. Green Day

3. The Thin Red Line. Also the title of a novel and film

4. Magenta

5. The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker. Later, an award-winning film

6. Shades of blue; did not give you Prussian, Cobalt, Midnight and the other better known shades

7. Goya

8. Damask, from the Damask Rose, originally from Damascus

9. Agent Orange, the dreaded defoliant used during the Vietnam War

10. Kaala Patthar

Joy Bhattacharjyais, in this age of televisions pundits and Facebook gurus, simply grateful that facts are not opinions.

Follow Joy on Twitter @joybhattacharj

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