HOLI SPECIAL Years ago, as far as my memory takes me, I remember a fine morning where I woke up to find a maroon painted moustache on my face. This remains my first recollection of the festival. And then there was the growing up which included pichkaris and coloured water sprayed on all the kids of the mohallah. Often, we grouped into gangs engaging in a pichkari-duel with our parents and passerby junta being the collateral damage.
But then, that was Lucknow – a region famous for its cultural finesse and bungalow-styled houses in good localities. It’s a place where we substitute the oft-repeated phrase “Bura na maano holi hai” with “Bura na maaniye, holi hai”. Well, the Nawabi aristocracy refuses to die down!
The Holi that I remember, as played in Hindi heartland, was a full-blown gregarious affair with some uncles and aunties shyly applying gulaal and abeer (Dry colour) on each other, and others throwing buckets of water at unassuming strangers! Only laughter, shrieks of joy, colour and water were splashed and sprayed on everyone. It was, like all festivals should be, a day to usher in happiness, playfulness, let go of restraint and enjoy societal company.
Not just locality-gatherings, people would visit each other’s house, exchange pleasantries, enjoy sweet gujhiya, and make sure no one was left without colour. As it was said, it was considered a good ‘shagun’ to get even a dash of colour on one’s face on Holi. Come evenings, and people dressed in all finery would visit different houses to laugh and gorge on Holi delicacies prepared in all homes.
Holi also meant a departure from the usual Indian shyness and restraint. Men and women who otherwise do not touch each other would enjoy flirtatious colour-playing. Boys would wait for holi to colour the one girl in the mohallah who was the apple of their eyes! No one was allowed to take offence. After all, it was Holi!
As I grew up and the social spectrum began to change, new watchwords began to circle in the air – Environmental Cleanliness, Hygiene, Menace. True, Holi does result in a little wastage of water, but then the automobiles pollute the environment, cigarette smokers kill others passively, Skyrise buildings threaten nature with suffocation and depletion of oxygen-generating trees, Rain-dance parties and movie locations waste a gargantuan amount of water for no reason, environmental dams threaten environmental biodiversity.. so on and so forth. We don’t stop existing despite this knowledge.
Holi and all other festivals are our paths of escape from a mundane, routine life. We escape the clutches of idiosyncratic tensions, mounting bills and social aloofness through excuses like these. Why then, should a price tag be attached to something that allows us to breathe in happiness!
Holi: The Festivity Today!
However, Holi faces an existential crisis like the celebration of most festivals. We now have snobbish statements passed around which say, “I don’t like playing holi, it’s too messy”. The social angle of the festival has taken a nosedive. Earlier, even opposition leaders would exchange holi greetings.
This aachaar sanhita or Moral Code of Conduct prevalent during elections had its own festival versions, where politicians desisted from figurative mud-slinging to indulge in a literal holi-inspired mud-affair! Who can forget Lalu and his bhang-inspired crackling comments on Holi alongwith playing dholak and dancing to rustic tunes!
A lot has changed surely. Lalu no longer plays holi because of the fear of EC and because he is ‘tired’. People don’t go out in droves as they used to earlier. Gujhiya and other sweets do not differ from home to home as they are all bought from the same ‘best’ shop of the area. The haath-ka-swad has been traded for mechanised uniformity. Also, very few eat them now. Health conscious you see! Sugar was never so hated by the middle-class as it is now!
The festival is still celebrated albeit without its natural fervour, there is more festivity in shopping sale season than on streets during a Holi morning. In some places, it has become ugly and disgusting. Mumbai has this crazy idea of throwing packets of water at random people on Holi, thus making an already dirty city, dirtier.
At other places, new cosmetic colours mixed with skin-charring ingredients have started ruling the roost. So, a holi debate is now between the use of organic colours and deep synthetic colours! Cities were never great proponents of celebrating such days with great festivity in any case! Southern India had little resonance with the festival anyway, and to make matters worse, keeps office working on such days! In this era of ‘migratory birds perched far from home’, celebrating the festival will mean skipping office and hence, dies a natural death.
If that wasn’t enough, few kids know about the story behind the festival. In the humdrum of this new-found flavourless avatar, festivals are no longer about forging bonds, or celebrating the message. Perhaps! The kids scurrying to buying pichkaris are ignorant about Holika Dahan which is symbolic of the burning of Holika. Legend says that Holika was asked by her brother Hiranyakashyap to kill Prahlad, his son, by sitting with him in the fire.
Prahald was a great devout of Lord Vishnu which angered his father as he was a self-confessed demi-god. So, Holika sits with Prahlad in the fire with a shawl wrapped around her. The shawl was blessed to being a protector of the wearer. With Lord Vishnu’s blessings, at that time, a huge wind carried the shawl from Holika’s shoulder to kid Prahlad’s thus saving the good boy from evil intentions.
However, not all is lost. As all festivals come to signify, this too is a victory of the good over the evil, of the might of devotion over the net of evil intentions, of the brotherliness over communal discord, of reaching out to others over remaining a social pariah!
Maybe, the Vrindavan tradition of Holi will continue to inspire others and will be shared with the world as more and more budding photographers try capturing the glory in all its colours!
Have some great thandai, a fun-filled day, a lot of pink-stained smiles and a very happy Holi!
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