Holi

 In the past I have spent all my Holis at our building party. This included breakfast, lunch, playing with colours, games of Housie, Antakshari between men and women, musical chairs and kho kho. Consciously, we told our children not to waste water. The hose pipe used by the gardener, was used to wet all of us playing  Holi. Some people came down only to eat the lovely hot food.Some took food up to their families. It was one day we all experienced lots of love towards each other. The earlier night for Holika dahan, there was lot of attitude amongst the crowd. The Marwaris wanted to pray their way n came down in their wedding finery. The Maharashtrians came in their 'ghar ka kapda' or house clothes. The Sindhis were well dressed. Some Jains boycotted this Puja as they did not believe in all this. Some came for the Puja but did not approve of the timing or waiting for the oldest member of the building to light the Holika. Various inter social dynamics were at play. Some days we had 'Sev Puri' at this event. Gujju solution to every meal is a 'Sev Puri', a street side delicacy  with unbeatable taste. It tingles your taste buds and leaves you panting for more of sev puri, Saada puri/ plain puri or water. When I had come to Mumbai to study, a sev puri cost 3.50 Rupees. It was a luxury to eat a full plate of  Sev puri. We always shared with friends, the Sev Puri and the cost of it. 

This year, the Holi party I attended had rain dance, DJ music and the works. Eight tankers of water were used for the Rain Dance. I saw Artificial rain for the first time in my life. The music would get more groovy when one tanker water got over and they had to get another tanker in its place. The way the security people managed this transition was so smooth. The water tanker was on the slope of a curved driveway, a difficult position to stop it and reverse it from there. The driver and the people supporting were doing a brilliant job. People were dressed for Holi. Colour code seemed to be black. Gone are the days when for any auspicious occasion or festival, we did not wear black. May be with all the water, women did not want their clothes to look transparent. The people who came dressed in white, stood out like sore thumbs. They were the ones who did not want to get wet or were not in the groove of things. The men were all in long bermuda shorts and t shirts. The young girls wore micro shorts. The just married but young girls wore jeans. Some men wore sneakers and socks too. May be it is better to dance with shoes than rubber slippers. Really cool Sardarni women were with their long straightened hair open and bandanas, while the men were in Patkas. Three boys from the nearby slums had sneaked in. I could see the glee on their coloured faces as they danced amongst the others. How did I make out that they did not belong? Something gave them away and I am unable to point a finger to what it was. The young parents would get their child and dance with him to a popular number. The children did not want this foot thumping music. They were happy filling small plastic bags with the water from the floor, and throwing it at each other. Atleast some recycling of all the water which was wasted by the artificial rain. Generally people stuck to their own set of friends or their set of relatives. Some foreign residents joined in the Holi revelry and were learning the Bollwood 'jhatkas' (dance moves). A couple of girls were dressed like Deepika Padukone in "Balam Pichkari" from the film 'Yeh Jawani hai Diwaani'. This song seemed like the Holi anthem. In our days, it used to be 'Rang Barse' from the film 'Silsila'. The Deepika clone kept pulling her t shirt down from one shoulder to show her bra, a black one, of course. She was doing some serious head banging but thanks to all the water, her hair was not flying on anyone's face. A couple of women came down to play Holi with full eye make up and dark tinted lips. Gone are the days when Holi meant oiling your hair tying a choti/plait and putting lots of oil on your face and body. Wearing our oldest clothes, which should have been thrown away last year, was the norm. The young boys were tearing their own wet t shirts and showing off their gym toned bodies. All this was minus any alcohol. Jharia Holis always had men tearing shirts of each other while applying colours. Men did not have t shirts or t shirts were considered expensive. People did not have old t shirts. Hardly anyone was standing at the periphery of this dance floor. It was like either you are wet or you stay dry and away.

I abhor this wastage of water or any of our natural resources.Here I saw myself enjoying the rain dance. The water, the music and the dancing crowd was so full of joie de vivre. May be this water was never going to reach the parched farmlands. I feel I was a part of this wastage. And I have no explanation to why I enjoyed so much. This was the first Holi I spent with my folks in years.



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