Reminiscing Holi

A school-mate who chats with me sporadically catches me online on a shiftless Tuesday. After a lot of idyllic topics, we ended up chatting about Holi. In the good-old, golden school days, a stretch of two weeks in March was festive. I studied in a school which was sponsored by the Jain Education Trust = population consisted of the local ... generally terming - the Hindi-speaking crowd. So, Holi was such a big deal. The planning started weeks before - just not where and when, but who to invite from outside the school/class, theme for the year (a particular color, idea, song...), who is going to sponsor what (as in terms of the actual props for the celebration), ....I have to stop here since I don't know what else was done....I was not too much involved in planning about this. Two reasons - I was not a native Hindi speaker; I was a little too academic to just be allowed in the actual celebration and not in the preparation. Such incessant planning and elaborate arranging led to an excellent Holi year after year. Those were GOOD TIMES!!

I remember the shocked expressions of my neighbors(rather conservative and close-minded) when all this happened for the first time(probably when I was in 7th or 8th class) and I came back home plastered in pink and green. My parents didn't mind it too much. It went on year after year. It was a great experience except for two things - the continual showering day after day to rub off the pink and green completely and censures from complete strangers (who are rude enough to comment on South Indians getting North-Indianaized and/or how we are just full of ourselves).

Almost all fun I had during Holi ended with school. During college days, it wasn't such a big deal, except in the girls hostel - it was a little vicious there, like eater be eaten!! Then during my post-graduate studies in US, they allocated a time and place to celebrate Holi. It was usually the following weekend. Not much of a hungama - just some singing and dancing, no prank-affair with Indian food (not much, just samosa and milk sweets) which made it dull and boring.

Now, striding past all that, Holi is just any other day. Except I saw a bunch of blogs related. Then, my friend was telling me about how he was playing pranks on Holi and was reprimanded for it!!

These posts are simply irritating. This one is about how Holi should not be telecast on TV's since people in Haryana didn't care for celebration of Pongal and Sankranthi. Common...Grow up. Once a human life and a few times in a life time... That's it...That's how many times this happens. Cant we just make the best of it for us and everyone around us?

This and this are plain disturbing.