My Holi as a child

Holi the festival of colors when colors run riot is a passion for many and a fear for some.

It is an Indian festival celebrated every year at the onset of spring. It is like saying goodbye to the winters. It is usually celebrated with colored gulal, colored water and it can never be complete without sweets. The traditional Holi sweets are the Gujiya along with Dahi Bhalla and Thandai a milk based drink containing a paste of melon seeds, musk melon seeds, almonds and a little black pepper with sugar added to it. It was a common feature to prepare these items at home. Many Indian households followed this tradition and some homes still prepare them. Now with both the partners being working ones the women of the new generation do not have the time to prepare them. Moreover all these items are easily available at all the sweet shops so they prefer to buy them ready made.

The spirit of Holi lies not only in playing with colors and eating sweets but more significantly in sharing love. Today maybe there are more work pressures and related stress which does not allow individuals to enjoy Holi as it used to be.

Things were quite different when I was a child. In those days this was a festival that was more of a common celebration. Every one in the locality collected in a large common place that was central to our colony. Each person had a packet of Gulal in their hands. Every one applied Gulal on each other and then embraced. The youth on the other hand were in a more masti mood as they danced to the tunes of famous Holi songs and splashed colors on each other. Soon every one was so engulfed with colors that only the colors were visible.

We the children too were not to be left behind as we played with water colors and were soon drenched to the bone. Soon plates full of sweets were brought in which were the common effort of several households. We all enjoyed the sweets as we laughed at each other because we all looked so funny.

The women too formed groups and visited each other’s house to apply Gulal and enjoy the festivity.

Looking multi colored the youth of the colony would ride on their cycles shouting Holi hai.

This was not all even our cousins and uncles came visiting and played Holi with us. They also brought boxes of sweets for us. My mother used to invite them for lunch and we truly enjoyed ourselves. Soon it was time to end the play of colors and take a bath. Thankfully it was easy to remove the colors from our hair and face as our mother had taken the precaution of applying oil to our hair and face.

Today when I look around I find that spirit of Holi missing as today every one is busy.

 “I’m pledging to #KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”