Holi-The Festival of Colors

We celebrate Holi. But what is the significance of this festival? Way back, I remember my days at school. Holi was the time to bring out the "wild" in you. We played holi with all sorts of materials, from "gulaal", to "gobar" (cow dung), and the enterprising few even used all sorts of dirty things including aluminium paints.

But there is some more message to holi than the regular ones we normally hear from our elders. Of course no denying that there is the scriptural message and religious message. But more so it is of the brotherly message. What ever misgivings we had for all the year, it was the time to make friends again. We hugged our "dushman no 1" and made him the "dost no 1". What a way indeed to mend old fences.

Then my mother always used to tell me that holi is the rowdy festival.

Before the start of the festival, we used to pen poems (that used to be my god degrading), of any one. I like to write poems whereas my friends used to make the drawings. We did not have MS Word or Powerpoint or laser printers. So we were plain writing, drawing, and photostat. In our colony the Poem/Images papers used to be stuck in the middle of the night at all visible places. The best part was that we read and laughed at ourselves. Civilization grows when it can laugh at itself.

As I grew I learnt that Swami Hariharji was born on the same day as well. That was a great joy and it made more meaning for playing Holi. I still enjoyed it, but knews that Holi was now holier. It was all colors, colors of love, colors of friendship, colors of helping, and colors of living.

From past many years, staying at Klang, I have sort of missed the Holi I had all these years. It is more of rememberance and reliving those days. Internet blogging is one of the ways.