Holi

Holi is one of the craziest Indian festivals ever. Our Muslim friend Abdul tells me, “Sandhya, this is very, very dirty Hindu festival,” as he motions out the car window on Friday night at men and boys drenching each other in colorful dyes. But that doesn’t stop him from joining in the next day. Saturday is the big day: full-fledged, fun-filled, colorful warfare hits the streets, and everyone grabs bags of powdered dye, squirt guns, and buckets of color to peg the neighbors. The adults walk ceremoniously to the neighbor’s gate, offer sweets and a pinch of color in honor of the festival’s more sacred nature, and then let loose, proceeding to dump whole bucket-full’s of dye upon each other. Reds, pinks, yellows, greens, blues, and a dangerous dark powder that will stain for a week, are rubbed into your face heartily with a loving mischievousness. Holi is like Easter in the States, except you’re the egg getting dunked in the dye. Once you’re stained bright pink it becomes much more difficult to hide from your pursuers. So instead, just hop on the back of a motorcycle, and speed away to target your friends before they get you. You may engage in some color throwing and water squirting in transit, as motorcycle gangs of magenta-faced youth zip about the city on a rampage of color. Children, teenagers, and adults all engage in fun. Cross Easter with the Lost Boys’ food fight scene from “Hook” and you may have some idea what the festival of Holi is all about. After scrubbing and scrubbing, my hair is legitimately dyed for the first time, a startling pink hue, and it looks like I’m back in junior high, this time going a little too crazy with the pink eye shadow. It’s not just confined to the eyelids, but has spread onto the cheeks, neck, shoulders and palms quite adamantly.