Date with Colors

As I travelled around the city on our car yesterday, and by bus day before yesterday, I could see hundreds of young men and women reveling on the road with colors, most of their faces colored beyond all recognition, and they seemed to be enjoying the fun of chasing one another to apply abir on the face and body! It is Holi, and the festival of colors had everyone on their toes, that all the eateries on the Park Street, alias Mother Teresa Sarani closed their shutters for the day, though Sunday is the busiest business day for most of them. But this is one day when the business persons cannot take it lightly; men and women fully drunk could do anything on that day.

Colors, and colors; there were long stretches of road painted with colors, and no one seemed to bother about mingling the artificial with the natural color of the earth; traditionally this is the day of licence, when persons who are otherwise prohibited by social norms are permitted to do what they wish, and it is the time for the young people to find their partners to play the game of Krishna and Radha, and in fact the festival has its roots with the divine sport of Radha-Krishna duo. Religious sanction is one that is considered more sacred and important for the modern day youth than the social sanctions and licence. Holi is not merely a festival of colors, but also of merriment and enjoyment in the company of friends and relatives.

Unfortunately Holi is associated with Hindu mythology and religious traditions and customs, and so people of other faiths might hesitate to join the Hindu friends in playing Holi. Needless to say, many of the cultural festivals of India, have been appropriated by major religious sects, and given a religious coloring. Such is the case of Pongal, the harvest festival of Tamils, and the Durga Puja of Bengalis. It may be possible to directly link Durga Puja to Hindu traditions, but the cultural festivals should not be too directly linked to religions, forcing the religious persons not belonging to that particular sect to stand outside and watch.

Most of the colors that were sold in the markets a few days prior to Holi are spurious and are injurious to one’s health, and yet there would be very few people who would abstain from using the synthetic colors, especially the colors that are applied onto the face and body. Here emotions take precedence to reason and common sense. On the other side of the spectrum is the cost of the colors that are bought at a very high price; the business people know that the colors are indispensable for the sport and so would be forced to approach the shops, and so the shopkeepers hike the price so high, some of them make as much as 200 per cent profit.

I love colors, especially the mixture of colors, and the different colors merging with one another to make myriad colors and shades. It is possible to make millions of colors with the computers, but nothing is like having the colors in black and white; artists and painters have eternal love affair with colors and some of them are married to colors that they die with the colors. But it is a different thing when the human bodies become the live canvass for one another to pain the pictures they have in their minds. On this day every one becomes an artist, experimenting with colors unimaginable. There is joy in the game, in the divine sport, and it is sad that the whole game has to come to an end within a day, though the young people would love to have the day prolonged for all eternity!