My History With Holi - Never Enough Said

I'm excited about this Holi, I've had terrible holis for the last few years barring a few exceptions (to discuss later). What i love about holi and weirdly hated at one point is the madness that comes from it. All over the city people can be seen going berserk, its like their license to behave like complete clowns. The hysteria of watching someone run up to you with this almost mental glee and then splat..it could be even an egg on your face. That is something i don't take to lightly, id like some egg for breakfast for sure but not on my face, thanks very much. Nonetheless its fun to watch people get creative.

Ordinary 'Mrs Kumar has just smeared some organic colour on Mrs. Pathak' led to the advent of weaponry. Something from a new gun that shoots coloured or non coloured water, great excitement for the little folk to those nasty water baloons too, those were an amazing discovery. Believe me ive made people feel like idiots by charging at them by surprise, how harsh it mustve been for the victim. Looking back i want to say sorry to a certain Mr. Ojha, i threw a massive water balloon on his head right in the middle of his evening walk once, he was pleading politely 'beta, no, abhi nahi beta, no' and whoosh came flying the bomb. Felt bad for Mr. Ojha, he couldn't really say much since it was 'Chotti Holi', the menace begins days in advance in fact.

Like little war mongers my friends and I would get ready days in advance with buckets full of soaked and ready to launch water baloons. We had intricate weaponry and we sometimes had dangerous (shocked sigh** )PUCCA RANG!!!!! We were the terror of the neighbourhood. Personally we would have pretended to be the anti 'pucca rang' brigade though secretly if we had got our hands on it we would attack the first victim in sight. It's like a jungle almost on the main day, the days preceding Holi are about slow but sure hunting yet nothing compared to D-DAY.

I used to live in a press colony called Press Enclave overlooking DDA flats and in our childhood we had made our own India/Pakistan variation of our neighbourly status, it was a very innocent variation i must say.However we would have bonafide Holi wars. Abhishek would come yelling 'Parikrama is in the colonnnnnnnnnnnyyy' and suddenly an army of atleast 30 press enclave holi soldiers out of hidden spots would begin rushing towards parikrama armed with guns, buckets, balloons, colours and some of us would resort to dirty trickery like Harsha who would be loaded with mud balls. A rumour would float around how one among us might just have eggs or even some questionable food item to attack the DDA trespassers. We had colony taps for our rescue in case Tarini's bucket ran out incase the DDA trespassers had their own arms and ammunition. They had these uniquely fast cycles as well that would blaze through the colony terrorizing all of us, but we the brave soldiers fought and fought till obviously one of our mothers had to intervene. These kind of battles would go on till the main day of Holi and then suddenly the battle would just end and we couldn't care enough to acknowledge DDA boys. Suddenly it was a civil war situation, we would be attacking each other.

We had many adjoining parks in our colony. One park would have all the uncles and aunties (today id probably be hanging there or just watching from the window). The one after that park would be where you'd find all the madness. Every year the slightly older 16-17 yr old boys would deem one boy to be 'age appropriate' to be doused in a big puddle of mud, up and down till he is drenched. It was actually a honour to be considered for that i must say. Looking back i was very proud at age 11 i was politely brought to the mud podium and then gently doused up and down like some rotisserie chicken. That bit was always enjoyed!! despite my disgust towards mud and eggs and all the other illegal means being used in holi :) lol

Anyhow those holis came to an end with the horrible entry of useless situations like BOARD EXAMS and ADULTHOOD. Of course no one says don't play holi cause your 24 yet that unbridled madness has reduced. I cant just go up to some random uncle and get the pleasure of smashing a balloon on their bald head, see that even sounded rude, but to me at age 8 it was PURE HEAVEN! and great laughing matter too. Today id be apologizing and probably wouldn't even dare to do something like that. However i still try to make it festive without the mud, eggs, food items, colours and weird weaponry. In recent years i used to big pepsi bottles to attack my friends, but that's over too i guess. Anyway tomorrow i shall revisit my childhood and see if i feel like attacking strangers or not. Tomorrow will tell how it all goes

Until then, HAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPY HOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLIIII