Ankur came to pick Sheila and I up at 10:45am. When he walked up to the door, Sheila didn't even recognize him. Already he was covered in colors - pinks, greens, yellow, blue, silver. I will give Sheila credit that she had only just met Ankur the night before for about 10 minutes, but still, she should have at least recognized him the next day. This was the beginning of Holi.
Holi is the holiday I was most looking forward to when I came over. It is celebrated by throwing colored powder or colored water on each other. If you would like the whole history behind Holi, visit Wikipedia or The Holiday Spot. They both provide the story back to Lord Vishnu and the burning of Holika who was supposed to be immune to fire. The story of the colors comes from Lord Krishna (believed to be the eighth reincarnation of Lord Vishnu). Depending on where you read, either Lord Krishna played pranks on the girls in his village by dumping water and colors on them or Lord Krishna complained to his mother of the difference in skin color between him and Radha (his divine love). To remove the difference in color, his mother applied color to Radha's face. This is why when we see pictures of the Holi celebrations, we see all the colors.
Now, Ankur had come to pick Sheila and I up. He insisted that someone pick us up and that we not walk to the office. I didn't quite understand this, but he was very clear in his insistence and so I assumed there must be a good reason. The first thing I noticed when we got in his car was that all the windows in his car were up. I don't think I had ever been in Ankur's car with all the windows up, and especially now that it is getting warm out. I quickly found out the reason behind us not walking to the office and the windows being up. In the short drive to the office, we passed at least a handful of people with squirt guns shooting colored water at cars as they passed by. Welcome to Holi!
Once we arrived at the office, we walked into a wall of our colleagues all prepared with colors in their hands. We didn't make it five feet before we were already unrecognizable. Some of our colleagues had taken the powder and mixed it with water so it ended up more like a paint. We both started out in white shirts and black shorts/pants - obviously that didn't last long. The colors were continuously put on our faces, in our hair, thrown into the air, and shot out of water guns.
It didn't take long before Sheila and I learned you have to carefully protect your own bag of powder so you can get back whoever comes at you. My pink bag lasted us well, we painted and colored many people pink. Later I got my hands on a bag of yellow powder that I was able to hold on to for quite a while until I made the mistake of being nice to Sachin, and instead of taking just a handful he took the whole bag.
Eventually, nearly everyone was there and everyone was covered. We started running low on powder so we were a little more careful with using it. Then the drinking, eating, and dancing started. There were momos, fried sweet dumplings, pakora (seasoned french fries dipped in spicy sauce), and some other desserts. Of course, like nearly all holidays, there was alcohol. Fosters appeared to be the beer of choice in gigantic bottles.
There was also a lot of music. At the beginning there was four guys drumming. It was really neat to watch, then Sachin took over at the DJ table and dance music started playing over the speakers set-up. Whenever someone would trip on the cord and pull it out the drummers would start again. So there was constant music for the first two hours. Unfortunately then the drummers left, before the beer was spilled on the DJ equipment and ruined it. Thankfully, someone was able to find another player so we were only without music for about 30 minutes.
Indians love to dance. I believe these guys could have gone on dancing for hours. I could barely make it through one song, it was hot outside and with all the colors on my face it just made it worse. However, at the end, my colleagues decided it was time to dispense with the water guns and go for the buckets. They started dumping full buckets of water on whomever they could sneak up on. I was the "victim" many times and traded buckets of water with Sachin.
Overall, Holi was excellent. Now the trick is how to get all the colors off. I have been relatively successful but still have some green on me. Hopefully by work tomorrow it will all be gone.
Now, Ankur had come to pick Sheila and I up. He insisted that someone pick us up and that we not walk to the office. I didn't quite understand this, but he was very clear in his insistence and so I assumed there must be a good reason. The first thing I noticed when we got in his car was that all the windows in his car were up. I don't think I had ever been in Ankur's car with all the windows up, and especially now that it is getting warm out. I quickly found out the reason behind us not walking to the office and the windows being up. In the short drive to the office, we passed at least a handful of people with squirt guns shooting colored water at cars as they passed by. Welcome to Holi!
It didn't take long before Sheila and I learned you have to carefully protect your own bag of powder so you can get back whoever comes at you. My pink bag lasted us well, we painted and colored many people pink. Later I got my hands on a bag of yellow powder that I was able to hold on to for quite a while until I made the mistake of being nice to Sachin, and instead of taking just a handful he took the whole bag.
Eventually, nearly everyone was there and everyone was covered. We started running low on powder so we were a little more careful with using it. Then the drinking, eating, and dancing started. There were momos, fried sweet dumplings, pakora (seasoned french fries dipped in spicy sauce), and some other desserts. Of course, like nearly all holidays, there was alcohol. Fosters appeared to be the beer of choice in gigantic bottles.
Indians love to dance. I believe these guys could have gone on dancing for hours. I could barely make it through one song, it was hot outside and with all the colors on my face it just made it worse. However, at the end, my colleagues decided it was time to dispense with the water guns and go for the buckets. They started dumping full buckets of water on whomever they could sneak up on. I was the "victim" many times and traded buckets of water with Sachin.
What a wonderful & fun time!!! :)
ReplyDeletexoxo,
Stacy