Happy HOLI!!!!

yesterday was Holi (pronounced "holy")--the festival of colors. there are a few different stories about the origins of this festival, but basically it's a celebration of the coming of spring, of good harvests and fertility, and of the death of the demoness holika. in other words, a perfect excuse for people to close their shops and run around in the streets throwing colored powder at each other! traditionally holi was a hindu festival, but from my experience i'd say it's gone secular- everyone, everyone celebrates (or they lock themselves inside their homes to hide from the hooligans). it is much like jouvert, the early morning mud/chocolate/paint-slinging part of carnival in trinidad. so there's some background, and here's my experience:

this is some of us with a friend from campus at our guesthouse, before we really got started. around 9am some off-campus friends showed up and we all piled into an open-top jeepy car (fondly named "gypsy") and took off- nine of us in the back and three in the front. as we drove through campus we could see that the other students had gotten a much earlier start than we had- already everyone was covered from head to foot in pink, blue, yellow, purple, orange, gold, etc. we had a quick breakfast of dosas and idlis, lassis and tea, and all sorts of chutneys at a favorite restaurant of ours (aptly named chutney's). from there we headed for the farmhouse of a friend of a friend-where all our friends would be (too many names, we'll just call everyone friend:)). the house was about 20km outside of town (and on bad roads, that is no short distance) and we got lost several times, but despite the discomfort of having about three people on top of me- bouncing at every pothole- it was a fabulous ride. everyone on the road was bright pink or orange, entire dayglo families were piled onto single motorcycles, people in rickshaws or on mopeds drove up next to us and threw color, everyone screamed "happy holi!" loud enough to be heard over of the noise of traffic.

the party seemed more like a garden party than a farm party- it took place in a beautiful little yard that you entered via bridge. on one side there was a refreshment tent serving drinks and a buffet- but food was the last thing from anyone's mind, all we cared about was playing color and dancing! there were huge ricesacks full of powder all over the yard, and continually you could see clouds of color exploding and dispersing in the air over someone's head. the rowdier of us were not content with merely throwing color, we instead pinned friends and strangers and smothered them in color- i had my teeth brushed with blue and pink several times- puh! next to the house there were pipes running overhead spraying water- an overhead irrigation system for the holi players. we all kept running back and forth between throwing powder and then dancing in the sprinklers, trying to wash it all off. despite the number of colors we used, everyone seemed to turn the same shade of pink by the end of the day. a huge mud puddle formed in the middle of the yard and people danced in it- and shoved others in it. there was a dj who played all the favorites- the songs that seem to be endlessly recycled in every club every night in hyderabad- and two tabla players who beat their traditional drums in time with the younger generation's soundtrack. on a raised terrace overlooking the yard there was a pool- which early in the day lost all semblance of cleanliness and turned into a huge red bath tub.

the hours fell away unnoticed as we forgot everything except holi, the moment we were in, the people we were with, and the intoxicating colors. by far, yesterday was my favorite day in india. i don't think there was a single person who was thinking of anything other than having fun and making sure those around them had fun. when we finally left, we realized we had been so excited to get there that we had forgotten to gas up gypsy- but after a few waterbottles full of petrol and a joint effort to give her a running start down the long gravel road, we got her going. driving back through the city in the late afternoon i could feel a communal calm despite the ceaseless traffic. hyderabad was tired and content- and a little more colorful than before. we were warned that the powder can hurt your eyes (and possibly blind you) and make your hair fall out; fortunately we dodged those bullets, though everyone with lighter hair looks like they've revisited their rebellious manic panic highschool days. one day and three showers later, my hair is still a nice shade of plum, my nails are pink and my cuticles blood red, my neck looks rather jaundiced, and the inside of my right ear is deep purple. to avoid this, people oil their hair and skin- but judging by the number of color-stained people i saw in the city today with fuschia necks poking out of white collars and pink hands handing over rupees, i'd say that a few days of visible holi aftertaste is inevitable for everyone. today the roads around campus are splattered with color and even the coats of the month-old puppies that live down by gop's have changed from a dun color to every color possible. but as all good things have to end, it's back to life as usual.

HAPPY HOLI!