Happy Holi

It’s a week late, but I can’t sleep and need something to write about, so I’ll share my experience of Holi with y’all.

Holi is a festival celebrated throughout India to welcome the coming of spring, which here in Bhubaneswar means the transition from the extremely hot season to the  HOLY-****-I’M-MELTING season.  Among other things, it’s celebrated by everyone going outside and showering each other with colored pigments.

Although the 2-day holiday didn’t technically start until the 23^rd, I started to notice a few signs of it beginning on last Monday.  For one, all my favorite street food vendors were either replaced or had new stalls next to them selling brightly colored powders; it was time to start stocking up for the battle that was to come.

As the week progressed so did the random incidents of people being attacked with the colors.  At first there were only a few mini battles, which I safely observed from my room.  By Wednesday, however, students were bringing the colors into the classroom and decorating each other during class.  This was also my first experience with the colors when one of my classmates gave me a nice bright face full of yellow!

Finally on Thursday, the 24^th everything came to a head.  I woke up to the battle cries of Holi warriors as they loosed their handfuls of color on each other.  After a quick breakfast and change into some Holi clothes I felt ready to enter the warzone.  And so, my fellow Americans and I embarked with our Afghan comrades outside the guest house and into the fray.

The first thing you should know about Holi is that everyone is fair game for getting showered in the colored powder.  Old or young, rich or poor, working or not, if you are outside during Holi, you will end up looking like a neon rainbow by the end of the day.

So from the moment I stepped outside the guest house I was greeted with a face full of purple powder.  We went on for about an hour or so smothering each other in the bright pigments… and they got everywhere.  It was in my hair, ears, nose, mouth, eyes…  It was awesome in every sense of the word!  The preferred tactic seemed to be slapping a handful of pigment right across someone’s cheek.  Later on we added water to the mix, which ended up blending all the colors together into a nice deep purple that got engrained in my skin for a few days.

As the battle started winding down many of the Indian students were coming back on to campus yelling without their shirts on.  I was sort of confused as to why none of them were wearing shirts, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.  Suddenly I was surrounded by a mob of yelling students who immediately grabbed my t-shirt and ripped it off my body, letting out a boisterous victory cheer!  I sort of just stood there for a moment thinking, what the hell was that?  Then I said to my self Happy Holi, and immediately went after the next closest person to me and ripped off his shirt too!

Probably the most beautiful thing about Holi (besides the colors, of course) is how it brings everyone together.  During the festival I knew I could walk up to any random person around me and give him a handful of color straight to the dome, and he’d smile back as he did the same to me.  “Happy Holi!” were the words of the day, and nothing else mattered besides that.  Whatever social barriers existed that day were brought down – at least temporarily – in a hailstorm of neon pigments and cheers.