Like every year, I wanted to be a passive participant in Holi celebrations. We visited Nishu's place to celebrate holi and have lunch with the family. As the day progressed, holi became more interesting. It was fun to see kids expressing their love by playing colors and enjoying the festival.
Nishu was all set with his organic colors and flame of the forest flowers ( टेसू / पलाश ). टेसू flowers were dipped into the water to get natural color, which was used by kids to fill their pichkaris. If I did the counting right, Nishu had 7 Pichkaris to deal with different set of kids from his society. Every year, he keep these pichkaris safely and make best use of them on the day of celebrations.
Holi festival, also known as the festival of colors. It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities outside Asia. It is primarily celebrated in India, Nepal and other regions of the world with significant populations of Hindus or people of Indian origin. The festival has, in recent times, spread to parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic, and colors. Check out more about the festival - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi
Kids had lot of fun with water. Many times, it was plain water. The other day I was listening on the radio that lot of water is wasted in Delhi on Holi day. Today I was feeling the same, but on other hand it came to the mind that kids are at least trying to avoid chemical colors. Which is probably a first step and gradually they will also understand the importance of water. Moreover, the society authorities had turned off water supply to the taps outside homes and as a result the consumption of water was much less when compared to last year. Apart from this it is our responsibility to discuss these things with kids and make them aware. My wife has asked Nishu to research on why we should not waste water and write an essay on it. He is busy with the research nowadays and by the end of next week, he is supposed to complete an essay on the importance of water and why it is important to conserve it. He has been promised a suitable gift if he submits a good, informative essay.
Water baloons are all time favorites of kids. I remember my visit to Amritsar around Holi and I was hit by at least 50 water baloons in Old Amritsar market. Kids were sitting on the roof with buckets full of water baloons. They were targeting almost everyone walking in the street. By the time, we came back to the hotel, we were all wet.
Most of the times, weather is cold during Holi so parents are extra cautious to ensure that kids don't overdo it. No one wants them to skip school because of cold or fever :) . At times, warm water was given to the kids to keep a balance, but not sure how much that helps :). I also learned that most of these kids were wearing a plastic shirt under the T-Shirt, which helps in keeping the body isolated from water drenched t-shirts. Some kids had also covered their heads with shower caps, polybags, or even swimming caps to keep their hair dry.
By 12:30pm kids were done with Holi and had sunbath for 15-20 mins. They had some quick snacks in the sun and headed towards their home to take bath. Once all his friends had left, our plan was to color Nishu with dry colors and click some photographs :), but things suddenly changed.
Everyone came out and started coloring each other with organic gulals. It was fun ! And very soon everyone was pink, yellow, peach, and green.
Nishu and his masi (my wife) ensured that everyone is well colored to get clicked. :)
Everyone laughed and no one really objected to being coloured.
Then the only people left to be coloured were Nishu's best friend (his Naani) and his Nana. Nana was spared with only a tilak on his forehead, but everyone else looked very colourful.
Now it was the time to strike poses and get clicked, to keep these memories for future.
This is Nishu's favorite pose nowadays whenever he is asked to do something. When this photo was clicked, he was being asked to go into the bathroom and get ready for a bath.
And this is Nishu and his Naani overdoing his favorite pose.
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