HAPPY HOLI

Disha (my friend's daughter) and Prapti (my daughter) played holi but sadly with the modern concept, nonetheless they enjoyed like anything.

This is March and the sky over India is changing, winds of change are starting to blow in and steadily the signs of winter is starting to bow down and out, although in many parts in India has already cleared off the chills of winter and already begining to feels the heat. During this time of the year there is a feeling of plenty in the air, with the crops being cut and the farmers feeling a bountiful of harvest. The festival of holi begins on the twelfth day of the waxing moon in the month of phalgun. As often there is so much of puja linked with any of the hindu festivals in India but unlike those holi does not really involve puja or worship that takes on this day. It is just a day of enjoyment with riot of colors, gulals or abirs as they are called in different parts of India.

The spirit of Holi is colour - rich and vibrant, flung into the air and smeared with laughter on friends and loved ones. It recalls, very simply, the secret of life: a shifting panorama of sights, movement and feelings. Colours denotes energy - the vivid, passionate pulse of life. Colour signifies the vitality that makes the human race unique in the universal scheme. Holi, the festival of colour, is also the enactment of spring. It is, in a metaphorical sense, changing earth’s dull garb of winter for the fresh blue of the March skies, the bright colours of new blossoms, the brilliance of the summer sun washing everything with its red-gold hues.

It often reminds me of my childhood, the days were so different than now. There were not so much of sophistication, not so many electronic and modern day gadgets to play with and mingle with, not much of television either that too in the later part of the childhood, as I felt why we really had to eagerly wait for all the beautiful festivities to return one after the other and take out the most from those and obviously holi was one such which really gave us a new meaning to life a new gush of breath to carry on with an otherwise very routined sort of life.

Holi generally in our childhood days started with the "narapora" or "chachar" as we used to call it in bengali, it was the evening previous to the holi day when all the boys in the locality (although there were several groups involved and they had their narapora as not everyone were friends...) would set up a long bamboo structure packed with dead and dried leaves generally from the coconut trees that would generally shed these leaves at this time of the year (a good 10-15 days effort earlier would go on to collect these from different parts of the locality as there was a stiff competition among all the groups of who would collect the most and of course there was a scarcity).. anyway these structures were then dug up and fixed on the ground with the focus that how high it is (there was a competetion too) and then at the fall of the evening these were light up and sometimes we used to put up spared fireworks from the Diwali/kalipuja time to make so more mark on the viewing diaspora. It really was a night of great enjoyment and fulfillment. I still remember how the sky would look red and firey with all those naraporas being lighted up almost at the same time and the ashes flowing everywhere - it was nice - the very thought of those days bring tears to my eyes as I sincerely miss the originality, and vividness of joy. I have seen my dear daughter play holi and I often feel she is missing something - this generation is missing the vividness and originality of the yesteryears - the sweet smell of the evening flowers pouncing upon the bowing sun, the sweet sound of the homecoming birds, the black clouds hovering with demonic figures over the fields and long unstructured and kaccha pathways lead to our homes - you really cannot see them now - there is so little sky you can see these days ... anyway talking about holi ..... oops then comes the morning which we all had been so eagerly waiting. I still remember the first thing in the morning I did was to check that all my gadgets that I intend to use for the holi are in the right place and working (even though I laid them and checked them the previous night). Eagerly waiting for the friends to come to my house, there was always a bit of hipocracy and I felt this was in case of most of the people young and old, they all were so eager to go out and take the colors on, but when approached on the first instance would look so uninterested and as if they have always been out of this fuss and very gentelmenly, it happened with me as usual, my friends would arrive and I would hide, there was a chore of running, jumping, thudding on the closed doors and then my mother would come in to the scene and assure everyone that I am okay to join and would come out without any more fuss. On my emergence there would be a lot of activity, almost with a few seconds the humanly figure would change into a multicolored demonic sillohoute and there would be cheers as if the roman empire had just fallen from its age-old pride.

Then it was so nice at that time in our childhood, all my friends would smear abir at the feet of all the elders in the family and we would also take turns to go to each other's house and do the same to the elders there - I do not blame the genX, but by the way it had a real sense of feeling that yeah you belong and gave an opportunity to socialize with everyone in the locality and to know each other so well.

After some 2-3 hours of frantic hip-hopping, wallowing and yelling with colored smeard faces it was time to return to our homes - a bit difficult when the dadas, kakus of the locality were still in their full might and continuing, but that is the bad part of being young - you are always goverened by somebody...only to take time to grow up and know that the elders are no less independent but are all more or less goverened (true sense of the word).

The holi nights were also very enjoyable, often we used to go out with my parents to some relatives house on invitation and later on when I grew up there always were a feast arranged in the locality where everyone used to get together and shared what had happened right through the day and then had a sumptuous dinner to end a very enjoyable day and fulfilling day.

I still await holi to come every year, the only difference is that I could not enjoy it now the same wau I used to - thanks to the professional commitments, health and sundries, but I really like my daughter see enjoy to her heart's content on this day... it bringsback my days of unfurrled joy and holi memories ..... Long live Holi, long live the colors of India.