….When Holi was all about family, friends, colours and more colours!
Today I reminisce about the bygone times of childhood, when it took just colours to make us smile, just sweets to get us delighted and just friends to get us charged with excitement for the entire day. Right from the day we became aware of this vibrant festival of colours – HOLI, until the present day laden with busy schedules, assignments, responsibilities and what not, the significance of Holi kept evolving with time.
I still remember the time, when my brother was a toddler and I was his trainer and guide for the day of Holi. The excitement always began from the previous day, with both of us going on a shopping spree with dad and coming back home with packets full of colours and two water guns (popularly called ‘pichkaaris’). There were always two separate packets in those shopping bags – one with the powdered colours (popularly called ‘gulal’ in Hindi/ ‘abira’ in Odia), exclusively for elders and the other with water colours and a gold/silver glitter powder (quite popular in our times), exclusively for the kids. All the school homework were to be completed that evening and we would go off to sleep after sorting out the oldest clothing we have, to be worn the next morning. That had to go straight into the dustbins, after playing with colours the next day. Such was the level of excitement and zeal to celebrate the festival of colours!
The day of Holi would then begin by 7 AM – yes, those were the days when we woke up early voluntarily! All we had to bother about was to brush our teeth, have some breakfast (already prepared by mom), get ourselves oiled from head-to-toe (my father made this rule mandatory every year, lest our skin retained the chemicals in the used colours) and storm out of the house with our water guns and a bucket full of coloured water (already prepared by dad).
Being a kid of the 90s, almost all of us have had those two sets of friends – colony/neighbourhood friends and school friends. In the initial years of childhood, Holi was mostly spent with that group of neighbourhood friends, which comprised of children (both boys and girls) aged between 3 to 15 years. Yes, that’s right! We were quite a heterogenous mix and all in a single big gang. We used to venture out of our houses, play outdoor games daily and run and scream along the lanes facing our homes, like crazy red monkeys during Holi. By noon, we would have almost coloured every inch of each other’s bodies and clothes and our buckets would almost be empty. Then, I would hear that dreadful voice of my childhood – my mom’s. That would be the last and final call to get back into the house and the best moment of the day. Because then, all of us would simply empty the contents of each other’s buckets, directly onto our heads and rush towards our houses.
Back home, there would be sweets, snacks and dishes galore. By then, a lot of friends and relatives staying nearby would have visited my parents at home, my parents would have ventured out and enjoyed their share of Holi and amidst all this, food would have also been prepared. I still wonder how my mother managed everything. We’ve all had super-moms indeed! Coming from a typical Odia home, my brother and me couldn’t just stop sniffing the aroma of the delicious Mutton-Aloo kassa (tender goat meat cooked with potatoes and spices) ready to be served for lunch only after we take our bath.
For us, Holi was eagerly awaited for the delectable food – be it the rasgullas, chhena podas, dahi vadas or the mutton curry – the list was unending as well as endearing! And ofcourse, the extravaganza continued till evening, when we met friends for our outdoor games and had a laughter riot gauging who was looking more pink or green, in the aftermath of the morning Holi. A small confession – as I grew up, I started applying less oil before playing and scrubbing less during my bath, so that my face would retain the colours of Holi. It felt somewhat good to show off that I played my heart out as well.
Later in the afternoon, I remember feeling a strange calm while glancing at the empty coloured streets through my window. I’m still not sure if it was the effect of a rigorous head bath, the gratifying mutton curry, extreme cardio while jumping around in the morning or just the essence of the festival. That feeling could not be denied. It existed. Perhaps, it was the purity of our clean souls back then, which made us feel so light.
I’ve not had a lavish upbringing and belonged to a typical modest middle-class household. But during this festival every year, the colours were always there, the sweets were always there, the food was always there. We can’t thank our parents enough for being who they were, for doing what they always did. Those were carefree days indeed! Back then, we did not bother if our hair-fall woes would aggravate with the chemicals used in the colours, we didn’t care if our skin got tanned while playing around in the hot sun past noon, we never cared about planning the menu for lunch, we didn’t bother if the utensils were clean, we didn’t care if the groceries were purchased, we never knew how to discriminate between people – all we thought about was giving our heart and soul to the moment. Perhaps, it’s the lack of responsibility in childhood, which made us such carefree souls, fleeting across from one heart to another.
I wish we could retain that same child-like fervour until eternity.