Like Diwali, we celebrate Holi for 2 days. Choti Holi and Badi holi. Choti Holi, yesterday starts of with Hanuman Puja during the day and Holika Dahan in the night ( usually late in the night). That is a bonfire made of cow dung cakes with ends of sugarcane burnt by the men in the family. It signifies the death of Holika and the miraculous escape by Prahalad. That sugarcane is then cuts into chunks and everybody exchanges their chunks with Holi wishes, applying Gulal as shagun. Only after this cycle is finished do we start playing . The next day, Badi holi is when we start playing early in the morning till noon. at the end of the day we are black, blue with streaks of gold and silver and dripping wet!
This was imp's second holi. And she totally loved it again. She loved the bonfire, the sugarcnae exchanges and applying color. Though she just watched letting others apply gulal to her face...she finally cane on her own with her nani..gleefully applying color to nani. Sleep be dammed.
Holi has alway been fun. And we have involved our friends and neighbours. One festival which we cousins always got together and had a blast. One instance come to mind... After playing, we all decide to go have some ice cream. We are there at the ice cream palour, and we realise that we are being stared at...getting double looks from everybody. People slowing down, stoppin to look at us...u knw like you would look at an animal in a zoo. And then one guy crashes his bike into the vehicle in front of him, while looking at us. We were 15 of us, all black with gold and silver straks on our faces and drippin wet. We were suning ourselves in the sun while having our ice cream. We stopped traffic. We caused an accident. We had a Blast, so much so that a friend makes a statement " Man! You North indians have more fun than south indians "
Wish you all a Happy, Safe and colorful Holi !!
