Holi,
the festival of colours, brings the message of the
onset of spring. It is celebrated on the day after
the full moon in early March every year. People
all over celebrate this colourful festival by smearing
each other with coloured powder and spraying one
another with coloured water from pichkaris
(water pistons).
The
festival, celebrated with utmost pomp and gaiety,
has many elements of primitive and prolific rites
and reveries that have defied civilisation. During
the three days of this festival, the whole country
goes gay with merry makers thronging the streets,
daubed in diverse colours, looking funny and ridiculous.
Holi demands big time planning. Buckets of strongly
coloured water have to be concocted and water balloons
filled to greet friends and neighbours. The gala
time starts in the morning itself. People go around
smearing each other with gulal (coloured
powder) and coloured water. Children shoot jets
of water from their pichkaris, screaming
gleefully. A lot of people spend the day alternating
between getting drenched and coloured, and consuming
thandai (a marijuana-based drink) in large
quantities as the day progresses.
The mythological origins of this festival vary
in different parts of the country. According to
one legend: The mighty king Hiranyakashyapu
in his stupendous ego ordered his people to worship
him as god. His son Prahlad defying his father's
orders continued his worship of Lord Vishnu.
The king wanting to kill Prahlad and wipe out the
very name of Lord Vishnu sent his sister Holika,
who possessed the boom of never being burnt by fire,
to destroy Prahlad. She cajoled the young Prahlad
to sit in her lap and she herself took her seat
in a blazing fire with the full conviction that
fire could never touch her. But the flames devoured
Holika and Prahlad walked out of the fire unscathed
and alive. Perhaps this festival got its name from
this incident. Certainly it was the victory of good
over Evil!
In North India and Uttar Pradesh, effigies
of Holika are burnt. To render gratefulness to Agni
- God of Fire, gram and stalks from the harvest
are offered with all humility.
As years rolled by, this festival acquired a new
significance. Besides being a Spring festival
it also become the Harvest festival. The
winter crop of Rabi gets ripe and the corns
of wheat become golden. So Holi means joyful celebration
to the farmers of new harvest. They offer their
first crop to the god of Fire.
Holi is incomplete without bhang (Indian
hemp, narcotic and intoxicant), consumed by many
in the form of laddoos and ghols. Singing and dancing
to the beat of dholaks (drums) completes the picture.
12:00:54 PM 
