Holi-Day

By the time this post will be posted, the festival of colours would be over. All the enthusiasm, fun, energy and mischief associated with it will be lost and the only thing to remain will be patches of different colours on different parts of your body. For those like me, who are die hard fan of this festival, must be finding it really hard to get back in their normal skin colour and complexion. With experience you must know that it will take another day or two to return to the original colours, so don’t worry.

Although each and every festival is marked with different beliefs, customs, rituals and has different ways of celebration, there are things about this festival which are different, unique and exclusive to Holi only. The colourful celebrations, the playful ways, the childish acts, what not do we have and together they all make it a day to remember.

The very fact that we play Holi, in order to celebrate it, is a unique feature which distinguishes it from other festivals. This playful celebration makes it one day on which you are not questioned for being naughty, infact it is the other way round.

This day age is not an issue. To all those grown ups who don’t want to grow up, the day provides them with a perfect alibi to act like a kid. They have the complete liberty to get into mischievous behaviour, childish acts and immature pranks [although never heard of mature pranks]. Then there are those who are tired of being acting like mature grown ups and want to have some fun. To them the day provides a well deserved break from their usual subtle mature manners and get into some masti.

All know about the famous ‘boora na mano holi hai’ phrase. Am sure whoever coined it, did not knew all the whacky ways in which people play holi. Had she/he known it then I think the phrase might have been ‘boora toh mano holi hai’. But it applies to a very small section and based upon exceptions let us not generalise the things.

The festival of holi is meant to catch up with all the forgotten friends and to patch up with all the remembered foes. The day is believed to turn very old enemies into friends [remember the movie Saudagar?] Although I haven’t seen any foes turning into friends on this day, as shown in the movies [then I have not even seen any ‘khoon k pyase’ enemies either] but have definitely heard about people burying their old grievances against each other on this Holi-day [may be that’s the reason why Mr. Advani went to 10 Janpath today, Fishing for some new alliance partners].

It will be very unfair on my part not to talk about the famous ‘Shivji ka parshad- bhang’ on holi. The two are almost synonymous with each other. The holi festival is a good occasion for all the avid drinkers, to dig into some during broad daylight. Although public display of this indulgence is not considered very well in our society, still people can be seen indulging into it openly this day. Am not sure if like other festival days Delhi government declares holi a dry day or not? The mind says it must be, but instincts say it is very unlikely [government is concerned about people’s health, instead of ‘desi bhang’ branded beer is better, plus its sale generates huge amount of excise as well].

All in all this festival of holi is meant to be enjoyed by everyone and each person has his or her own unique ways to do so. Some like it soft, some harsh. Some civilized, some wild. Some fun filled, some serious. Some childish and some the ‘oh so’ grown up way. At the end of the day everyone is filled with joy, disgust after looking at the mirror and tired like hell after bathing for over an hour. All this is unique to the colourful festival of colours. And if by chance I missed on something please do tell me.