Tuesday 15 March 2016

Lets play Holi One more time

I was always a shy girl always living my life according to the rule book. I was the perfect role model or at least that is what I tried to be and I must confess with quite a bit of success to such an extent that my mother would refer to me as a role model for my siblings to emulate. This would have been the story of my life had it not been for one day of the year when the rule book would be thrown and drowned in a bucket full of the fastest colors that would be available in the market.
This was the day when I with a Sita like demure would turn into a tomboyish Gita.
My preparations for Holi would start normally 2-3 days in advance. The first step used to be to request my mother to help me decide the set of clothes that would be worn by me on the day of Holi. After all these would be no ordinary clothes for by the end of the day they would not look the same and when the Holi celebrations ended these clothes would be covered with a multitude of colors and in most cases would be beyond recognition. Yet our maid would always ask me to hand them over to her as the ingenious lady had found a very effective use for my Holi battered clothes . She would use them and turn them into a scare crow to ward off the birds that would come to eat the grains that were spread out to dry in the sun on our roof top. My mother being concerned about my well being always gave me those clothes to be worn on the day of Holi that would cover me almost entirely with the minimal amount of body being exposed to the colors of Holi. Apart from this precaution she would apply a generous amount of oil to my hair ,face,hands and any other part of the body which may come in contact with the Holi colors. At least two days before Holi my pichkari would be taken our of the store room and its innards would be drenched in oil so that it would work flawlessly on the day of the great battle of colors called Holi.
Since our house was at a considerable height then the rest of the houses in our lane, it gave me somewhat of a vantage point when it came to playing Holi. The terrace used to be my well guarded fortress from where I would drench the passer by's with colors. Then when my friends would come we could move to the still higher terrace and it would be here that the festival of Holi would be played from the early mornings to late evenings. It used to end only when my parents gave us the ultimatum to stop playing with water and colors that the festivities would stop. However by now I would resemble more of a street urchin drenched to the core and covered with so many different colors that in most cases my parents would have to scrub a couple of children clean before they could recognize my face.
Now a days Holi has been reduced to greeting people via SMS, phones .or Whatsapp.
However these mediums of communication fail to convey the spirit of undiluted fun that one used to experience in my childhood days. Without all the fun Holi has become a day wasted rather then being the most fun day of the entire year.This year I am going to organize a Holi get together at my place with the theme #KhulKeKheloHoli. Even though there may not be the need to make a scare crow as there are no more wet grains to be dried on the terrace. Yet the Gita in me does deserve to see the light of the day and live life to the fullest and play holi like there is no tomorrow.

“I’m pledging to #KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”

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