Holi High!

When I first met glittering Garnet, the particular thing I noticed was how he remembered the Holi festival from the brief time he spent in New Delhi as a diplomat kid. So this one is dedicated to you Garnet- may you relive your childhood festivities and have a colourful musical Holi!

As a child I recall a lot of happy Holis spent with friends when one rushed out early in the mornings and made as long a morning of it as possible. In fact, the lead up to Holi started weeks ahead with all kinds of strategies being planned, bucketfuls of balloons filled with coloured water and strategic positions being taken on terraces to take aim and drop those balloons on unwary passers by. Invariably these groups got divided among gender lines and eventually there would be girls' groups to do battle with boys' groups.

Then, de Beauvoir and a lot of other 'learning' happened- and I realized the gender implications of the sexist celebration of Holi - how it was a mere excuse to indulge in normally aberrant behaviour, how under the guise of festivities inhibitions and a lot else were dropped, how every right thinking woman should take a stand and make it known, how Holi equals only hooliganism, how to hate Holi! The occasion of Holi is a celebration along gender lines, used to indulge in a lot of 'eve-teasing' (as it is euphemistically called). Still there are gender positions being taken and the sexual undertones are apparent in playful festivities. Yes, for all of this it is right to dislike Holi.

But was that the celebration which was popularized in folk lore- in the stories, horis, geets and raas-leelas of Krishna in Brindavan? A celebration of 'eve-teasing'? More abandoned and wild those festivities were, but also more playful and kind. A celebration of sexuality in a different age
- a celebration child like and natural where the woman would say mohe pichkari maro na, both as an instruction as well as a plea, the na and its tone being the operative part. One would wish not return to those times as a post-modern liberated woman, yet the fleeting appeal of such play can not be denied.

When the streets look crazily romantic with flowers of all hues, can we not momentarily drop our inhibitions like those trees shed their leaves and go with the flow?

Heres hoping that we women (and the men too) would learn to be more comfortable with our sexuality to be able to participate in such festivitites as equal partners without the present gender polarisation.

And yes, a side note...

There can't be Holi without sweets - but this pack here brought me memories which had been filed away in the recesses. Crazy memories of a mad month spent in Nagpur, at a place quite appropriately called Pagal-khana chowk! Ridiculously hot January days, after the snowy cold of Shimla, with days of sleepy stupor relieved by those scrumptious meals (at least for the Shimla starvers) and nights of long celebrations. Of the daily evening visits to Sitabuldi, which was the closest commercial street Nagpur had to offer to us, who missed our Shimla mall. Of Haldirams of Nagpur vying for top-slot with Baljees of Shimla. Of Nagpuri santra burfees competing with the hot gulab jamuns and pastries of the Mall. Of a crazy group of giggling girls piling into 'Rekha Beauty Parlour' and storming that establishment. Of movies being watched late into the nights. And yes, those long waits for snatching a precious few minutes of telephonic communion with spouse in distant Delhi. Ah those days of no GPRS!

Happy Holi again!