BHARATI PAWASKAR
India is a land of festivals and every day is celebrated for some reason or the other. Among the hundreds of festivals that mark their presence every year, this festival of colours is an eagerly awaited one, especially for the kids and youth who take this opportunity of bathing everyone around them in colours, publicly. Holi or Rangpanchami, as is popularly known, the festival has its origin in mythological tales but is well adapted to modernity now.
Originated in the Indian subcontinent and celebrated prominently in most states in India, this festival of colours has spread to other areas of Asia and parts of the western world too, through the diaspora from the Indian subcontinent. “Holi unites all,” admits Smruti Yadav, a homemaker from Vasco. Originally from Uttar Pradesh, marriage brought her in Goa, Smruti is settled here for the past ten years. “I wait eagerly for Holi to arrive as it gives me a chance to travel to my maternal home and play Holi with my childhood friends. They too arrive too from different parts of India, wherever they live now. This festival of colours brings back those old ‘black and white era’ memories that we once lived some two decades ago,” shares Smruti. There are many like her who take off from their jobs and run to their hometown to play Holi.
Piyush Vaipai is another Holi lover who plans his holidays around this festival and travels to Patna to meet his parents and friends. A journalist working in New Delhi, he takes his entire family to Patna to play Holi. “Holi offers you free hand to do ‘masti’ the whole day irrespective of your age and gender,” smiles Piyush. For people like Smruti and Piyush, celebrating Holi is ‘must’ as it rejuvenates and recharges them for the rest of the year. Celebrated with enthusiasm on the full moon day in the month of Phalgun (March, as per the Gregorian calendar) the festival of fervour may have different names across the country but the spirit of celebration remains the same.
Dry and liquid colours mixed with water are the weapons with which Holi is played. People clad in pure white wilfully get drenched in these colours, marking the symbol of unity in diversity of this nation. Markets are full with cheaply available heaps of colours - gulal and abeer - which are mixed in water or used dry to throw on each other. Children enjoy throwing pichkaris and water balloons from building rooftops or balconies to drench the passers on roads.
On this day, most kitchens smell of freshly made gujia, mathri, papdi and puranpolis (a special sweet made of jaggery and grams) and people visit each other’s homes to taste these delicacies and wish ‘Holi Mubarak’. “Holi binds us all and after playing with colours during the day, evenings are reserved to sit together and snack with sips of Bhang (milk mixed with poppy seeds). Usually it is men who are privileged to taste Bhang but in metros like Mumbai, women also join us,” says Harminder Sing, a hotelier from Margao.
As every festival in India has a story about its origin, Holi is not an exception to this. However, if we peek in the origin of Holi, more than one story pops up. The first and foremost is the legend of king Hiranyakashyapu and his son Pralhad who is a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Despite his father’s warnings of not worshipping Vishnu, Pralhad continues to do so. Agitated by his son’s behaviour, the king orders his sister Holika to enter a blazing fire with Pralhad in her lap, because Holika had a boon of not getting burnt in any fire. She obeys her king brother, but Lord Vishnu’s blessings are with Pralhad. Agni (the lord of fire) saves him and instead, evil-minded Holika is burnt into ashes. To remind us of this story of the victory of good over evil, people light a symbolic bonfire called Holika or Holi on the cross roads or in the residential complexes on the eve of this festival and in reverence, offer newly harvested crop and other goodies like sesame seeds and jaggery to Agni to express their gratitude.
After a daylong celebration, the evening are sober. People wear clean clothes and visit each other’s homes to greet and exchange sweets. This festival imbibes in us the spirit of oneness and that all are equal when it comes to sharing joy.
Holi is that colourful weave which unites all in one fabric and strengthens the bond of love among the diverse cultures in this nation. A small state like Goa is no exception to this national and universal concept “ of sharing love and joy equally among all.
