EmotionallyHuman

Holi has always been my favorite festival – the colors, the sweets, the festivity, they always brought so much joy to my heart. Painting the faces with red, green, gold & silver color used to be my favorite part of the festival. In our childhood, we kids would roam around our colonies with the smalls ‘dibbas’ of these colors, catch hold of other kids, mix some water with the colors and paint their faces, to the level that no one would recognize each other ;), oh my god… what fun that was :).

Come home, all soaked up in these colors, looking like beautiful ghosts; not taking any scolding or beating for being these naughty kids which, let me tell you – was an exception…just on this day :). And then, the most dreadful part- taking bath, oh my word, that used to be a challenge- trying to rub & scrape off all the color. In layman’s terms, that used to be a circus.

But trust me, the rewards after that would be heavenly. The lunch used to be the most delectable ever – the ‘Malpuas’, ‘kathal ki sabzi’, ‘poori’, ‘mutton’…Normally after eating so much, one would want to take a nap, but no, not on HOLI. By 4/4.30 we would all dress up in our new clothes, carry a cover full of packets of dry gulal – shades of pink, red, yellow, gree, blue, orange… and march our ways to all the neighbor’s houses. What for?

Now, that was the fun part of the day, visiting neighbors to take their blessings by putting some gulal on their feet and coloring our friends faces again, with these dry colors. But that wasn’t it, every house we would go, the aunties would give us Dahi wadas, sweets, some special Holi savories and that would have made our day. We would visit all neighbor houses, just to follow the same ritual everywhere and no one would mind it, even if we were visiting them for the 1st time – that’s the spirit of HOLI.

The day would end with us all tired & sleepy, but sad. It had ended too soon, we wanted more of it, the colors which had made us laugh, cry, jump, run, giggle, angry…now they had almost been washed away, faded. In our heart though, the songs would play on repeat till about a week and the words would always be – ‘When the Colors Dance’.