HOLI ~**Festival of colours**~

holi aayi re :D.
WISH YOU A VERY VERY HAPPY HOLI !!!!
Although now i seldom play with color water on holi, i miss it !!



Holi is a festival of colour & is celebrated all over India. Indians residing out of India also celebrate it. This festival comes on the full moon day of Phagan - a Hindu month. This festival brings new hope for all the people as it marks the end of chilled winter days and the beginning of the summer. People forget their enmity and throw away their worries. Every nook and corner presents atypically colourful sight.



Originally a fertility festival, later legends have ascribed varied origin to Holi. One speaks of a king so arrogant that he demanded that his people worship him. Only his young son, Prahlad, dared refuse. Attempts to kill the prince failed. Finally his father's sister, Holika, said to be immune to burning, sat with the boy in a huge fire. So potent was Praladh's devotion, that he emerged unscathed while Holika burnt to death. Huge bonfires are lit on the eve of Holi in commemoration and the grain of the harvest is thrown into the flames. The playing of Holi is closely associated with the Radha -Krishna story. In Vraj, legendary homeland of the pastoral God, the festival is spread over 16 days. Apart from the usual fun with gulal and colored water, there are processions with music songs and uninhibited dance and boisterous scenes in and around temples.
Kama, God of love and his consort Rati (Passion) are also worshipped on Holi in commemoration of Kama's destruction and resurrection by Shiva

Holi is the most colourful festival of the Hindus and falls on the Full moon day in the month of Phalgun according to the Hindu Calendar which is the month of March as per the Gregorian Calendar. This Holi festival has many elements of primitive and prolific rites and reveries that have defied civilisation and prudery. During the three days of this festival, particularly the whole country, towns, cities and villages - go gay with merry makers, streets, parks and public places are crowded with people, daubed in diverse colours and looking funny. Children and youngsters vie with each other in being original and use fast and sticky colours. It is all a mirthful abandon for them. This festival of joy, mirth and buoyancy is celebrated when both Man and Nature cast off their winter gloom. Holi heralds the arrival of Spring - the season of hope and new beginnings and marks the rekindling of the spirit of life. Gulmohurs, corals, silk-cottons and mango trees start flowering, gardens and parks present a glorious spectacle of a riot of colours - crimson, red, pink, orange, golden yellow, lemon and a variety of glittering greens. The flowers breathe out their fragrance into space and brooks and streams leap in the valleys. The joy bubbling in hearts find expression in dance, drama and music.

The color, noise and entertainment that accompanies the celebration of Holi bears witness to a feeling of oneness and sense of brother-hood. No other festival brings home the lesson of spiritual and social harmony as well as the festival of Holi!!

People celebrate this festival of colours joyously with friends and relatives, rubbing gulal and throwing colored water on each other. On this day, people come out wearing pure white clothes and gather together in a common place where they play Holi with gay abandon. The magic of playing with colour, which begins early in the morning, continues through the day. Traditional delicacies are prepared in advance and served while playing Holi. Families, friends, and neighbors get together to enjoy this festival of colors. The spring air is still cool, the water cold, but revelers make a special punch of an intoxicant called bhang, which is mixed in milk, to add to the festivities.

This festival of Holi - a festival of myriad colours, of gaity, of friendships and re-unions all over the country. Thus Holy is certainly a vital part of our Indian life and culture in which religion still is a living force.