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Before starting this post, I must give credit where it's due. Over the past few weeks I had been looking at organizing a 'Holi Party' and had come across a post on UltraBrown which was aptly titled and I feel it captures the essence of my post.For those of you that don't know what 'Holi' is a popular spring festival, also known as the 'Festival of Colour' which is celebrated across India as well as in countries across the globe that have an Indian population. (If you would like to know more then check out Wikipedia)
I have only ever celebrated the traditional Holi once before, in Dubai and that was years ago (feels like another lifetime ago) when I was barely 12 or 13 years old.
Here I am in Mumbai and have now experienced 2 days of 'Holi' and it's been a colourful journey. I had made plans to head out of town originally but due to lack of committment fr
om some of the group - I cancelled those plans and headed to the Zoom TV Party which is apparently ranked quite high up on the social calender.I must stress that Holi is not something that is played across in the evening; it is a 'day event' which means the music, the dancing, and throwing of colours, water guns, coloured-water balloons - all come out from about 10 a.m onwards !
Such is the popularity of this festival, it's the one day of the year, that the typically conservative Indian population shun away their inhibitions and just 'let go' ! The public goes a bit insane - people are pelting each other with water balloons; wetting each other's clothes to transparency (oh I forgot to mention, traditionally everyone wears white); smother coloured powder (nowadays it is organic) - the whole time getting drunk on 'bhang' which is a milky cocktail of hemp/cannabis and buttermilk !!! Everyone - uncles, aunties, kids, your neighbo
ur even - are getting intoxicated on this day !I was with a group of four friends, and we made our way to this stunning bungalow on the other side of the city and made our grand entry in 'all white ensembles' and 'water guns' for protection and sure enough, within a few minutes - we were sprinkled with coloured powder that was floating in the air. Luckily we decided to cross the threshold and just dab a handprint of each other on our outfits before any merry-men decided to do so instead !
The party was pretty good - there was make-shift dance area set up with trusses around that were sprinkling water - actually spraying would be the right word - on the masses of writhing bodies in the centre. The Dj was playing all the peppy hindi songs that are popular over Holi; and of course the bar was flowing !!! Imagine that - it's a Wednesday afternoon and everyone was drinking Vodka and Beer - not to mention the 'thandai' (minus the hemp)
My crew got themselves a mini-massages that was being offered at the party - good thing too as they were applying oil on everyone's head for the head-massage. I was smart - and had lathered myself with baby oil and coconut oil (yes even my hair ! I can't believe I went out like th
at!!)We were actually really good sports - and doused ourselves in colour and even got under the water spray !! Lots of drinking, lots of dancing; and trekking across the mass mud-pits that kept forming and getting larger in size throughout the day. It was an afternoon of letting go of oneself; not caring a damn about how one looked; and just going a bit silly with the music and the madness all around !!
Thank the Lord for giving me Google which allowed me to find out how to protect myself from the colour stains !
