Holi

One of my Holi memories from Delhi

Holi passed without holiday, without colours, without pollution. My relief knows no bounds. 

Holi is one of the festivals I dreaded when I lived in Delhi. It meant breathlessness after people leave you having dumped as much filth on your body as possible.  The other was Diwali.  It meant dumping filth into the air.  Again, I was left breathless.  Asthalin inhaler and Otrivin nasal drops saved me on both occasions.

I would have loved to enjoy both the festivals from a safe distance.  If people want to throw whatever they want on other people and call it festivals, it is their business.  Who am I to question that?  But the problem is that they insisted on throwing at least some of that on me.  Even if I sat at home with my door bolted they would come ringing the bell.  “I am allergic,” I would plead.  “Only a little bit,” they would claim.  Everyone throws a little bit of their love in the form of some powder or liquid or firework smoke.

Holi and Diwali. I seem to have escaped them.  No one celebrates any of these in my village in Kerala.

I was a little surprised to see youngsters from a college near my home covered with Holi colours yesterday.  College students just want a reason to throw filth on each other, I guess. But, unlike in Delhi, they didn’t throw it on passers-by.  They only exhibited their own Holi-coloured selves to others.  That’s fine.  I’m grateful to my destiny, at least for now.

But I wish Happy Holi to all my friends to whom the festival means a lot.  I respect their sentiments. 

I wish everyone respected other people’s sentiments.