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Friday, March 21, 2008

Holi…


This blog is not for my Indian friends. Holi is a great Indian festival that comes on the month of March. And this year it precisely comes on today or tomorrow (I mean 21st or 22nd March 2008) depending on the region within India.

It’s the most colorful festival I started distancing myself from. Younger days were so exciting in celebrating this festival for anything could be forgiven on this day. People come on streets to pour colors on each other. Offer sweets and on the peak side drink some narcotic laced drink called Bhang.

That’s the only part I missed in my whole life. I mean I never drank Bhang so far. I heard weird tales about people losing their control over their tongues and limbs. I am not even curious about trying it.

One day before this festival there will be huge bonfires. Sometimes we used to collect anything that’s combustible from homes and some times we literally used to steal things from home to burn things. Then we used to make a huge bonfire and made some kind of ritual Zulu dance around it. We used to rebuke and mouth unspeakable expletives towards the people who donated that fire wood. I am not sure how this aspect of faith entered but it is believed that what ever expletives directed at a person would actually go hit his misfortunes rather than hit him. People just used to smile listening at our diatribe. And we used to utilize this golden opportunity to vomit our suppressed sadism and hatred over someone we liked not.

Then the next day is too exciting. I used to get up early in the morning armed with my ammunition of colors and my water bottle. I used to run to the nearest friend’s home and knock door. Some times I used to face boorish eyed father of my friend and some times my own friend with his won ammunition. We used to dunk each other with colors and then team up to run towards other friend’s home. And slowly we used to swell in groups. It’s the only day where everyone used to rock their heads in locating and destroying victims.

The best part of this festival is that enemies are supposed to become friends. And the saddest part is in the guise of colors and obvious pandemonium people some times carried out their retributions too. Sadism some times went beyond limits and people use to make use of anything that’s harmful to skin. Items like oil grease and even gutter water… They even explode raw eggs on head or crouches… Yikes…

And in Mumbai they throw balloons filled with water from buildings on pedestrians and people who travel on trains. There were many incidents where people lost their eyes top the sadistic pleasure of these hooligans.

I started hating Holi.

It’s been decades that I played Holi. I just lock myself in a room and allow not anyone to touch me…

But if one enjoys with true spirit of Holi… It’s the joyous festival….

Happy Holi to all of you… My friends




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