The colour was never yours to begin with
Red in India belongs to the bride. It belongs to the sindoor pressed into a parting, to the Benarasi draped for a phera, to the chooda stacked on a wrist. By the time a girl grows up watching weddings, she has absorbed the lesson without anyone stating it plainly: red is conditional. It is permission-based. It arrives with a ceremony attached, and when the ceremony ends, so does the licence to wear it.
