Holi is a happy holiday. It is where people walk around with bags of color and rub their friends and family with it. Or spray them with water. I read about the holiday on Wikipedia, but I don't understand exactly where the color comes in. I haven't found any one to explain it to me either, but in any case...it is very 'colorful' and it being India and a holiday, can get quite intense. Deciding against the 'intensity' I watched around the guest house and overlooking a backyard. Other places there are marauding young people, mostly men who douse people that get in their 'cross hairs' with color or water (via giant turkey baster like apparatus) or both (colored water). It's mostly very fun and light. But it being India, it can go over the top. Some people compare it to Halloween, with more emphasis on the trick versus the candy. The sweets are fruit/nut smoothies with bhang (cannabis) which after a few can get you rather wasted. So, it's all a bit of debauched behavior. It seems to be the most fun for kids, because they can dump color or water or both on their parents, or any adults with impunity. What fun! It's one reason I stayed home and watched the kids play, little kids, ones you could say 'no' to.
Will try to post again before I leave tomorrow night. A bit of running around tomorrow, last minute stuff. Delhi has been very nice and a calm part of the roller coaster ride begining and ending the trip. I don't feel like I did before, swearing that I would never come back. Besides my credibility with that is in ruin anyway. Now, I feel ok about being here, good even. But I'm also looking forward to going home, to NYC, cold & snow, Bill, the cats, my life.
Seems, you really enjoyed the ‘festival of colors” in India.
ReplyDeleteI have also same opinion that Holi is a happy holiday.
Every year a huge number of tourists book holiday package and flights to India to experience this amazing festival of that country.