The colors of Holi

The colors of Holi

Holi is the happiest, wildest and most colourful festival of India.This former Spring fertility ritual and agrarian festival celebratingplentiful harvests has kept remnants of its bacchanalian character. Participants love to break taboos and conventions and reverse the role behaviour imparted by a rigid caste society.

Photos by ©Bruno Morandi/LightMediation Text by ®Carisse Busquet

2418-11: India, Uttar Pradesh, Holi festival, color and spring festival, celebrate the love between Krishna and Radha.

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2418-01: India, Holi festival, color and spring festival. 2418-02: India, Uttar Pradesh, colorful face powder used for the Holi spring festival in India, Holi festival,color and spring festival, celebrate the love between Krishna and Radha.

2418-03: India, Uttar Pradesh, Holi festival, color and spring festival, celebrate the love between Krishnaand Radha.


2418-20: India, Holi festival, color and spring festival.




2418-12: Hundreds of women wear bamboo stick and during Holi, the village women have the freedom tohit men who are only allowed to protect themselves.



2418-15: India, Holi festival, color and spring festival. 2418-16: India, Uttar Pradesh, Holi festival, color and spring festival, celebrate the love between Krishnaand Radha.

2418-17: India, Holi festival, color and spring festival. 2418-18: India, Holi festival, color and spring festival.





2418-36: India, Uttar Pradesh, Holi festival, color and spring festival, celebrate the love between Krishnaand Radha. Hundreds of women wear bamboo stick and during Holi, the village women have the freedom

The colors ofHoli

As soon as you mention this name a smilewill appear on the face of any Indian. Holiis the happiest, wildest and most colourfulfestival of India. This former Spring fertilityritual and agrarian festival celebratingplentiful harvests has kept remnants of itsbacchanalian character. Participants tendto go overboard and crack ribald jokes;they love to break taboos and conventionsand reverse the role behaviour impartedby a rigid caste society.

Holi bonfires

This festival is named after a she devilcalled Holika. Holika was the sister of aking of demons, Hiranyakashipu, who hadbeen granted a boon by Brahma after longand extraordinary penances.Hiranyakashipu could not be killed "duringday or night; inside the home or outside,not on earth or on sky; neither by a mannor an animal". Full of arrogance thisdemon king considered himself the equalof any God and expected to beworshipped by all mortal and immortalbeings. But his own son Prahlada, afervent devotee of god Vishnu, refused tocomply with his wishes. Furious thedemon king tried to kill his son with thehelp of his sister. He gave him poison,hurled him from the top of a cliff and triedto get him trampled by an elephant. ButPrahlada, thanks to the protection ofVishnu, survived all these attempts on hislife. Finally he was ordered to sit on a pyrewith Holika who was protected from thefire by a magic shawl. But Vishnu whiskedaway the shawl when the pyre was lit and

covered Prahlada's body. Holika wasburnt to death and Prahlada survived. The festival is celebrated all over NorthIndia and lasts usually two days. On thenight of the full moon of Phagun (whichcorresponds roughly to beginning or midMarch) huge bonfires commemorating theburning of Holika are lit in thousands ofvillages and towns.

Playing the colours

The next day, called Dhulheti, themerrymaking starts. From early morninggangs of youth provided with ample storesof gulals (colored powders) and colouredwater start roaming in the streets lookingfor willing victims to splash them withwater and smear their faces and bodies.During this festival no one should objectbeing manhandled and transformed into arainbow where deep reds and bluesalternate with yellows, greens andmauves. Only the elderly persons arespared.Girls and women prefer to play Holi athome or with close neighbours becausethe boys can be rowdy, sing ribald rhymesor songs to them or indulge even inpetting if girls happen to go near them. Formerly the boys and men taking part inthe merry making used vegetable colourswhich were supposed to have medicinalproperties. Today almost all colours arechemical and often toxic and can provokeserious allergies and damages to the skin.But the youths using these colours do notseem to mind and go on splashing andsmearing each other with unboundedenergy and enthusiasm. It's usually hotduring the month of March which marksthe beginning of the short-lived Indianspring. To slake their thirst the Holirevelers drink a lot of thandai, a refreshingdrink. In its milder form thandai is made ofwater, milk, almonds, rose petals, poppy,

cardamom and anise seeds. But the youthoften add generous portions of bhang(marijuana leaves crushed into a greenpaste) or drink alcohol. By the end of themorning or in the early afternoon thegangs start breaking up and the youngmen head back home, half stumblingbecause of exhaustion or drunkenness. Athome they will go on scrubbing for hours,without much success, the persistentcolours deeply ingrained in their skin, atestimony of the day's friendly sparringand encounters. The fight of the amazons According to the Bhagavata Purana (textdating from the 11th -13th century whichrelates the legend and the feats of Vishnu)Krishna, the eight avatar of Vishnu wouldhave been born in Mathura. For thebhakta, the fervent followers of Krishna,Holi would commemorate the gamesKrishna played with the gopis, themilkmaids of the Jamuna river. Accordingto another beautiful legend Krishna wouldhave complained one day to his motherabout the contrast between his dark skinand the fair colour of his lover Radha. Hismother then smeared scarlet colour onRadha's face, thus ushering in the play ofcolours. During several days processions of menand women performing folk dances go tothe numerous temples dedicated toKrishna. Rasiya songs celebrating theeternal love of Krishna and Radha aresung to the rhythm of huge drums knownlocally as bumbs. Devotees shoutecstatically the names of the immortallovers "Shri Radhey," "Shri Krishna". Days before the main day of the festival amock fight between men and women, thelath mar holi, takes place. A century agoW. Crooke, an English ethnologist,described this event, (unchanged tilltoday) which occurs in the vast courtyardof the Radha Rani temple.

« The women have their mantles drawndown over their faces, and are armed withlong, heavy bamboos with which they dealtheir opponents many shrewd blows onthe head and shoulders. The latter defendthemselves as best they can with roundleather shields as they dodge in and outamongst the crowd, and now and againhave their flight cut off, and are drivenback upon the crowd of excited viragos?Whenever the fury of their femaleassailants appears to be subsiding, it isagain excited by the men shouting at themsnatches of ribald rhymes." Dulheti marks the grand finale of thefestivities. In all the main towns andvillages of the region huge crowds gatherin front of the temples. From the raisedplatforms of the temples or the rooftops ofhouses lining the narrow streets leading tothe shrines people throw fistfuls ofcoloured powders or liquids on passers-bywho throw back packets of powder atthem or smear the faces of theirneighbors. Green, red, yellow, mauve andblue clouds hover in the air turning thestreets and squares into a surreal theatreset and the men and women with paintedfaces into fairy tales characters. The devotees, covered in layers of coloredpowders and gathered in front of thetemple squares pay tributes to the godswith raised hands or make the beautifulgesture of the namaste with their joinedpalms. There is something very movingand beautiful about this crowd displayingat the same time a noisy cheerfulness andsilent devotion, an outburst of energy andreligious reverence. But a feeling ofhappiness prevails because this festivalcelebrates the love plays of an eternallyyoung and smiling God and his immortallover, Radha.

The colors of Holi

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