My New Favorite Holi-Day

(Alex) Yesterday, I found my new favorite holiday — Holi. Holi is the Indian colors festival which happens every year on the day after the full moon in March, this year, it fell on March 20th. Holi is a social holiday, where friends get together, drink and catch up while throwing their gulal (colored powder) at each other. The colors represent love and life and when people throw their gulal at one another, it breaks down the boundaries of caste, class, and gender which makes everyone equal and gives the feeling of togetherness and universal affection.

The Holi Festival starts on the night of the full moon, when there is a Holika Bonfire. The Holika Bonfire symbolically represents the victory of good over evil. The bonfire includes a huge fire, singing and dancing.

On Holi morning, we got dressed in our white apparel which the hotel had provided for us. Finally it was time for the color war to begin. With the pink, purple, yellow, orange, green and red gulal at the ready, we started hurling our powder at each other. Everyone at the hotel was playing Holi; the guests, the staff, the security guards, absolutely everyone!! Colors flying, children running, music playing and people dancing. I ran all around throwing colors at people yelling “Happy Holi!” I must have seemed like a total maniac, but I didn’t care, I was having a blast! We had a motto of “Show no Mercy” so whenever someone threw a color at us, we nailed them back with any color we could find. Soon I was a colored mess. My face had layers of color, my hair was dyed pink and orange and my clothes looked tie dyed. Luckily the gulal was organic, since I got handfuls of powder in my mouth. We looked like oompa loompa aliens.

Unfortunately, the colors ran out (all 30 kilos or 66 lbs) and the Holi festival started to die down, like a flame without oxygen. Holi was one of the best days on this trip so far. I really enjoyed my new favorite Holi-Day.