A festival that
celebrates the victory of good over evil and a celebration of the arrival of
spring. It’s the festival of colors, emotions, and happiness.
The central ritual of
Holi is the throwing and applying of colored water and powders on friends and
family, which gives the holiday its common name “Festival of Colors.” Come
Holi, and the country is painted in mesmerizing hues of blues, yellows,
magentas, greens, violets, and more. Clouds of colors dancing in the wind carry
the message of love and happiness across walls, neighbors, and hearts.
Brightly colored powders
are the mainstay of Holi, during which men, women, and children carry powders
and liquid colors to throw and smear on the clothes and faces of neighbors and
relatives. While dry powder colors are called “gulal,” colors mixed with water
are called “rang.” Tables with bags of colors are lined up as neighbors and
family await the others to enter the grounds. It’s a day to celebrate and let
go — loud music, local brews, and fun-filled chatter are all essential elements
of the celebrations.
But most importantly,
Holi is the day when you will see the streets and homes of India doused in
almost every color imaginable. Each color has significance, religious or
otherwise. And there is a color for almost every occasion, moment, or
celebration. Each color symbolizes a force in life, and thus color and life are
inseparable.
While the most popular
colors are the brightest — blue, yellow, red, purple, pink, and green — there
are colors that are conspicuously absent, traditionally. These include black
and white.
Though white symbolizes
a sense of purity, it is also a color of mourning. Widows in India, unlike in
their western counterparts, retire to a white-only dress code. And while black
is considered ugly, evil, and undesirable, it is relied upon heavily to ward
off evil, as is evident in the ceremony of putting a black dot on a new-born
baby’s face to ward off the evil eye.
During the early days,
the “gulal” colors of Holi were made at home using flowers of the tree,
otherwise called the “Flame of the Forest.” The flowers, once plucked, were
dried in the sun and then ground to a fine dust. The powdered dust, once mixed
in water, gave way to the most brilliant hue of saffron-red. The saffron-red
pigment and colored powdered talc called “aabir” were the mainstay at Holi
celebrations, long before the chemical colors of today.
Squirting colored water,
throwing colored water balloons, and throwing fistfuls of powdered colors at
friends, family, and even strangers is not considered out of place or
offensive, and is in fact a part of the festival. Children and teenagers line
up at strategic vantage points, armed with buckets of colored water and little
water balloons, waiting to attack unassuming passers-by.
Every
color means something special in the Indian psyche. Red, for instance, is a
mark of matrimony; brides in India wear red most often at their wedding since
it symbolizes fertility, love, beauty, and, most importantly, is a sign of a
married woman. It is considered custom in the ways of Hinduism to wear red
powder-Kumkum on the peak of their forehead. Most often considered the
prerogative of a married woman, a red dot is worn between the eyebrows to
symbolize blissful matrimony.
Yellow is yet another
important color in the Indian psyche. Yellow is almost synonymous with
turmeric, an ingredient of great importance at auspicious functions across
religions. It is perhaps revered more so because of its medicinal use right
from the ancient times.
Other colors that tease
the skies on Holi include blue, the color of the revered god in Hinduism, Lord
Krishna. Green symbolizes new beginnings, and is also the sacred color of the
Muslim community in India.
The spirit of the
festival includes all classes, castes, and religions and brings people
together. Together, they celebrate the onset of spring by filling their day and
life with the colors of joy, prosperity, happiness, and peace.
