Colours of Holi

Holi is a Hindu celebration on the changing of seasons from winter to summer or spring, whatever. Yes, the winter is officially over here in Kolkata. It is also fun filled activity for their Hindu god, Krishna who is fond of throwing colors to his followers. Holi is a regular annual event where residents in the CINI campus organized activities for the day with their families, friends and CINI guests. This paint throwing and fun celebration is a whole day affair. 10 am in the morning is the official start of the fun where different artificial colors, in powder or in liquid forms, are on display for everyone to use. There are different kinds of how to color your neighbors face and body in the Holi way. One is the famous one called slapping but not slapping too hard because it might cause some injuries. Slapping is good for making handprints on your neighbor’s bare thighs, legs and arms. Another is throwing the powder on the hair or at the back of your neighbor. This is great for having nice powdery color effect on your hair, good signature art for the hair and creates nice reflection under the sun. The third one is called massage. This will create a long lasting color stain on your neighbor’s face for a great Holi look and classical Holi expression. Pour some colored powder on your palm and massage you neighbor’s face, on the cheeks, forehead, arms, legs or neck. The forth one is the splashing water-based liquid colors using a bottle or a plastic water gun from kids. All you have to do is snatch the water gun from the kid and replenish the content from a bucket water based colors provided along for the Holi then aim to your intended victim, pull the plastic trigger and wham! A nice color splat on your neighbor’s face or clothes. The next and last one is through the bucket itself. When there’s no more color powder and water gun available, all you have to do is lift the bucket filled with colored water and pour it over the unsuspecting neighbor nearest you and there he/she goes with colors all over and shaking the water off from his/her unrecognizable self like a wet dog.

Holi at CINI was so much fun and all kinds of methods above were successfully utilized and demonstrated with expertise and precision. We played a short game sitting in circle in the garden and I was able to share my bollywood dancing moves to my fellow colored and unrecognizable alien-like entities. Sure did able to practice VSO’s motto, “Sharing Skills, Changing Lives…”


Now the most difficult part of Holi, I realized, was the washing off of the colors before the lunch time gathering/picnic. It took me hours of scrubbing, using 4 kinds of soaps, 3 kinds of shampoos, tons of water and strained muscles, just to make myself look normal again. It wasn’t enough, I still have red and blue colors all over me. Well, I can’t miss the sumptuous Holi lunch. Thus, I went on, stopped and was shocked to see that all of them were looking normal again, as if nothing Holi had happened to them. It was so unfair and they refused to tell how they were able to do that. Still, I’m not going to give up investigating, I can find ways I am sure.