The Festival of Colour – Holi – is observed on the last full moon of the lunar month, which for us was last Monday. It is a Hindu festival to celebrate the coming of spring, thanksgiving for a good harvest, love, new beginnings, and the victory of good over evil. I have also been told that it is a celebration to mark the departure of winter – but seeing as how the temperature in Mumbai never actually required me to put on long pants, I am somewhat dubious of the claims about winter.

While Holi is celebrated around the world (and the fun aspects of it have even been appropriated for things like Colour Runs back home) India is the obvious place to celebrate. It is made up of two major events: a bonfire – Holika – on the festival’s eve, and the celebration of colour the following day.

Holi’s origins date back to the 4^th century and there are various legendary stories as to its beginnings. One has the pious son Prahlada standing up to his evil demon king father who tried to burn him alive, only to be saved by his selfless aunt Holika and Lord Vishnu. Other stories have Holika’s motives being somewhat less pure, and she is incinerated after trying to lure Prahlada into a furnace. Hence the motifs of good overcoming evil.

For the colour aspect there is also a charming legend about the young supreme deity, Lord Krishna, being concerned that the beautiful and fair goddess of his affections, Radha, might be put off by the small little detail that his skin was, well, blue (in his defence, it wasn’t his fault, he was poisoned as a baby by a she-demon). Krishna’s mother, tired of having him mope around the palace, told him to choose any colour and “playfully paint her face to overcome any differences.” Radha’s heart was won over — thus Holi also a celebration of love — and one of the reasons for all the colour.

And there is a lot of colour. Everywhere.

Everything, and everyone is fair game. It does not matter whether you know the person or not. Water balloons and water guns are used to spray water, pools of water are around for people to be tossed in, and handfuls and handfuls of colour are thrown everywhere.

The four main colours are used to represent different things. Red reflects love and fertility, blue is the colour of Krishna, green symbolizes spring and new beginnings, yellow is the colour of turmeric (um, I got nothing here. It is true, turmeric is yellow but honestly I just research the stuff, I didn’t create the holiday), and all the other bright funky electric colours and just for the sheer fun of it all.

The coloured powder – or gulal – was originally made from organic things such as indigo, saffron, and turmeric but now is made artificially of wheat, dye, and who knows what. (When T made a comment at a meeting later in the day about the fact that we were told the colours we were covered in were “organic”, her colleague had a good chuckle and asked if she had ever seen anything organic that vibrantly pink or green. Point taken.)

An interesting aspect of the colour is that it serves the purpose of making everyone equal regardless of age, social status, caste, or even race. (With one friend, when covered in bright neon yellow, it was hard to tell he was black.)

In all the party for our apartment block lasted for almost 5 hours, which to be honest, was enough for me. It started at 9 and by 2 I was ready for a nap. Apparently though, in other parts of India the festival lasts for 16 days, so I am going to have to pace myself for next year.