The rule nobody wrote down but everyone enforced
Your mother didn't need to explain it. Neither did your mausi, your neighbour, the aunty who arrived early to every function and stayed late enough to have opinions about everything. The instruction was carried in the air of every preparation room: black is for mourning, black is for bad luck, black does not belong at a wedding, a puja, a birthday, a baby shower. You absorbed it before you were old enough to question it, the way you absorbed which hand to eat with and which direction to face during an aarti.
