Happy Holi

Holi was last Wednesday. The 27th – fairly bad timing as my Indian visa expired the very same date, why I had already left the country a few days before.

Anyways, Holi is by far my favourite Hindu festival. Perhaps my all-time favourite religious festival (if it’s possible to have favourites in that category). Because of its craziness and colours all photographers love it as well – it’s almost impossible to take bad snaps at Holi. Holi is celebrating that a Hindu god (one of Vishnu’s incarnations) escaped a demon trying to burn him. The god survived the flames, which were celebrated with colours. Hence, colours are the festival of colours. 

At Holi you should remember to wear old clothes, or at least clothes you don’t mind change colours… Also, it is a good idea to stay away from crowded public areas – not all stick to herbal (and hence safe) colours.

As mentioned, I were already back in Denmark at Holi, but luckily a group of guests in camp had decided to celebrate holi early, so I did get a taste… (I’ve also brought a few holi colours back for my non god kids, which we’re going to use this summer, when the weather has (hopefully) got warmer. 

I have of course played (as it is called) Holi in India in other years, e.g. I spent my 30th birthday in camp on Holi itself (notice the combination of coloured powder and whipped cream in my face):

So of course, I have also written a letter about Holi  - 7 years ago in 2006, when I stayed half a year with Inger in her farm house in Southern Delhi (a long long story, I might tell some other time).

“Holi has been on its way for about a week. First, the shops started offering incredible amounts of colours, water balloons and water guns. Then, a couple of days ago, I saw the first pink guy, and Sunday I made my own preparations by buying a kilo colour powder in red, yellow, green and purple. The night before Holi lots of small fires where lit all around town, symbolising the fight against the flames and on the streets you could see the results of the pre-Holi games: pink, green, yellow, blue people cycling home as if it was perfectly normal to be coloured.

And finally it started! Holi is mainly celebrated in the morning and we had our first visitors already around 9 am. I was prepared, wearing old clothes and fully armed with all my colours, I entered the garden. A few seconds later I were attacked by our guests, completely covered with colours (including in eyes and mouth…) topped off with a bucket of water over me to make sure the colours really stuck.

That was the start of a gigantic hour long colour/water fight in the garden, complemented by loud music and beers – according to tradition you celebrate holi (at least) tipsy.

Our gardener had taken tipsy to a new level and was extremely entertaining all day. By hiding under a tree and throwing colours at anyone passing by. By sitting in the kitchen watching his hands to figure out whether they were working. And finally by falling asleep in the driveway, sandals off and hands folded on his chest. He was rather quiet when he got up this morning.

Holi is so smartly organised that it is a day festival so everybody can get a shower and sleep off their buzz before going to work next morning. Though I’ve tried to wash Holi away, I still got very pink eyebrows as do the streets still have visible signs of Holi (nothing like a blue cow).“