Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Holi, The Festival of Colors

Holi. The festival of colors that welcomes spring to India. Paul and I awoke to an eerily quiet street. Typically, when we wake in the morning there are the usual street sounds--dogs, trucks, rickshaw horns, children playing. But not on this morning, today you could hear a pin drop. Today, is definitely Holi. I can almost see people creeping about ready to pounce on innocent city wanders with a splash of color to their bodies. Holi celebrates Spring with the flinging of colors everywhere! In other words, this is a great opportunity for you to celebrate your inner-5-year-old-child. Laugh, scream, chase, water balloon, and water gun your friends down with colors. Whether you are walking your dog in the park, walking down the street, sitting in a rickshaw, or buying some fruit--Holi can, and will, find you.

Paul and I decided to avoid Holi seeking us and go to a Holi party at Waterfront. Typically, most Indian families celebrate the holiday at home with friends and family. That is unless you are one of the unfortunate people to get attacked by a motorcyclist passing by with a water gun filled with color. We attended Holi at Waterfront with some friends and had an absolutely wonderful time! All colors used were organic and produced by EcoExist, a local Pune business that promotes eco-sensitive products using natural and recycled materials.

As we walk out the building, we see these lads running with their water guns . . . uh oh!?!

Welcome to Holi 2009! Yes, that is a man with a large bucket dumping purple dye on to other participants . . . Paul and I thought this might be the cheap way to tie-dye our clothes, but remarkably I have removed all the color somehow!


Here are the gals from cards . . . My plastic Ziploc got in the way of the shot otherwise it would have been perfect! And I think there is a stream of colored water being shot at Betsy!

After Adriana and I were done attacking each other, we decided to play nice and pose for a photo . . .
Paul and I have now had enough entertainment. We are completely saturated with colors. Luckily, I wore this scarf, so that my hair does not look like a rainbow as I am sitting here right now.

3 comments:

DJ said...

Oh, so jealous!! I always wanted to experience Holi in India. It's quite not the same here in the US. Happy Holi!!!
Daljinder

GoBlueMom said...

How fun! Just imagine if we did that at one of our 1212 parties! Hugs!!!

Paul and Melissa said...

What would be funny is if we had a 1212 reunion party. I'll bring the colors from India, and we can have it at Meredith's since she lives in A2! HaHaHa!