Holi Hai

Holi Hai!
In the small town that I grew up festivals meant gaiety but Holi always held a special place in my heart. It held a charm of its own. It meant putting on faded clothes, playing with colours, water, getting messy and importantly not getting scolded for it in contrast to the other festivals where a ritualistic bath was followed by putting on new clothes and offering prayers to the Almighty.
All the bacha party (kids) would begin planning for the festival – a good fortnight in advance. We would discuss about the pichakaree, the colours we planned to play with, the time we would begin playing Holi (this also held a charm as playing games was generally restricted to the evening hours and Holi was played in the morning hours!). We would be warned by the parents to play carefully, not to apply colours on the face, being careful about the colours getting into the eyes and so on. Once we were out of the house, each one of these warnings would have gone unheeded and our resolve to colour the maximum number of children would be strongest. The game plan was to apply colour to a particular kid and escape unscathed. We would sneak from behind and drench an unsuspecting kid and run away squealing with delight. This would trigger a chain reaction and the kid would rush to take revenge. We would run through the length of the street and the entire colony. We would form gangs and have war of colours. Though sometimes it led to little fights, but was forgotten and each one of us would be in good spirits soon as cries of "Bura Na Mano Holi Hai!" would reverberate in the air.
Our Holi began at ten in the morning and ended before noon. We would be soaking wet as we would make our way back to the house. The chill we felt would be perceptible as we would move from the sun into the cool indoors. We would be met with "Don't drip on the doormat and carpet. Get into the bathroom and take a bath". Amma would ask us to take a proper bath with warm water and scrub ourselves hard to remove the stains made by the colours. Her admonishments would be interspersed with our version of how we enjoyed the day. This would mark the end of the Holi celebrations for that year. When we met our friends in the evening, we would proudly show-off the stains of colour that had refused to be washed away. We would then make plans for the next year. And so, year after year this tradition continued.
Today, when I see excitement in my children over Holi, I relive my childhood through them.