Holi Cow

Before

(Paul) A kid’s dream. Celebrating the festival of colors, Holi at Fort Ramathra, a small rural village in central India. We wake up and put on our all-white Indian clothes and learn about the Hindu holiday Holi. For 1,000 years, this religious holiday celebrates the start of spring and the harvest, where the whole village throws powdered dye in the most magnificent colors. We start slowly as the host of our hotel, an 11th generation family member of this 350 year old fort we are staying in, puts beautiful red powder on our foreheads to start the Holi celebration. Then the local village children march up to the fort all holding water bottles filled with different colored liquids. I spy in the courtyard a bucket filled with squirt guns and water balloons. We are celebrating Holi with our Nantucket friends The Rosenzweig’s and we comment, this is going to be fun. As we approach the local village children, we immediately start getting colored water and powder thrown at us, we naturally grab the water balloons and squirt guns and have Holi War! All our white clothes are quickly covered in every color imaginable. We scream Holi, and douse anyone and everyone with colored water and powder.

After

After about and hour, the village women enter the fort. The women, who still cover their faces in the presence of any man older than her husband, go into a quiet corner of the fort and proceed to start dancing and singing. The local men are not allowed to see their women dancing, but foreigners, we are ok! A drummer joins in, and we all start dancing with the local women. For some reason they liked my dancing in particular. Not sure why, but having rhythm is not a requirement for this form of Indian dancing. Next up, the local village men show up and have their own dance party. The women were elegant and good dancers, the men on the other hand were not. According to our local guide, the men have feasted on a buttermilk laced with marijuana, and a good part of the men were in lala land. As with any good party, it starts to get a little out of control, the dancing, powder throwing and rambunctious men bring the party to a whole new level. Holi is unlike any other celebration that I am aware of. The festival of colors will forever be a fun part of the Salem family adventures.

Now the not so fun part, the process of trying to clean ourselves up.

(Click here to see the Holi slideshow video)