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Rang Barse - Happy Holi

Why not? Certainly shower colors that you want to, sprinkle water, and enjoy the festive season of Holi, the spring festival that we recently celebrated a day ago. However, something that I have never been able to comprehend is what pleasure do people derive out of hitting some stranger with a balloon or coloring him/her.

I still remember the days when walking in my colony on a Holi day (also includes 2 previous days) was no less than walking through a battlefield where you don’t know from where a bomb (balloon) might strike you. It wasn’t scary but irritating and the tradition continues. Though I must confess that as a child, even I had practiced such things when throwing balloons at anyone was seen as mere fun without applying any logic to it. However, that was when I was very young and as I grew up those things started rather appearing foolish to me. And that is when I stop celebrating the festival of colors and water (being unnecessarily wasted). My disgust kept increasing with passing years where I saw people being hit with water balloons losing their eyesight or becoming visually impaired, girls falling prey to water borne molestation: throwing-squeezing-running act, and use of colors that caused more of damage than providing enjoyment.

Whatever is the case, why do strangers be targeted, play Holi with your family, friends, and your loved ones – who stopped? Spare us though and definitely me.

Many of us, and the parents of the little ones who take great enthusiasm in this festival are still not aware that the colors which we use are not appropriate for our body – skin, eyes, hair and so on. But we want to enjoy – who cares about the long term ill effects when we are so happy with the short term fun that too which lasts for one day. Moreover, we still can’t understand the amount of water we waste and estimate what and how things will be in future. Selfish – as long as I survive, I can be happy, I will do what I want, let others think of what they want to do.

I may not want to highlight any mythological instances and infer anything based on that. However, I would certainly like to bring out that Holi festival falls during the spring when the weather changes and viral infections and other illness become prominent. In order to fight against such sickness powders from various medicinal herbs were applied on the body, e.g. turmeric, mehendi. This was also one of the reasons why the colorful Holi is played. However, we barely remember this basic reason and are gala over applying oil paints and chemical mixtures to each other. Happy Holi we say.

Happy Holi to all of you and hopefully we have a safe clean yet colorful Holi next year onwards.

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