Rang barse

The holi we played at home, always with family, was a rather messy affair. Holi for the family is about going insane with ghastly chemically charged 'pakka' colors, gorging on special holi food, drinking an unknown cocktail of alcohol and letting loose.

Even an hour spent scrubbing hardly made any difference to the ghastly pink hue that marred our bodies and it would take at least 3-4 days for the color to wear off from the skin. My hair would run pink color for at least a dozen washes. Fingernails and toenails would bear testimony, of the rambunctious holi we played, for several months. The last holi was even worse with watermelon, tomatoes and tomato ketchup adding to the slimy, crazy mess at my father's brothers home.

Despite all this nuttiness, i find Holi a beautiful and colorful festival where everyone is happy, and has a lot of fun and strangely i love it more than any of the other festivals we celebrate. This year, there are no holi celebrations and i am going to miss the madness.

How are you celebrating the festival of colors this year? Like me do you have fond memories of holi or do you lock yourself in and refuse to step out to play holi? (It can be a rather horrifying experience, i know!)

{photo via}