'Holi' Days
The time when I most feel like going back to my childhood is when Holi comes around. Oh to be a child again and get to play Holi! That would mean real happiness...the joy without measure of being friends in the company of innocence.
It was during the time that we used to stay in Type 2 houses of the President's Estate. In those days, there used to be just a low compound wall separating the boundary of the Estate from the main road outside. Beside the wall grew a Peepal tree that served as a companion to many a lonely childhood heart and as a merry partner to groups of enthusiastic youngsters intent on games. Many a memorable eve did we friends spend talking, gossiping, giggling and exchanging secrets beside that Peepal whose warmth extended down to us even when the poor soul was without leaves at the peak of Winter. And the festival of colors too managed to leave its colorful fingerprints on the old Peepal!
Come Holi day and the early morning sun would be eagerly awaited so as to spread his warmth over the chill of the morning and make way for a rollicking afternoon! We kids would get busy filling up our water pistols and scores of balloons with colored water. The kind of clothes one wore too needed attention as they were bound to get unwearable by the day end. So, we hunted around in our cupboards looking for the oldest and most worn out and faded clothes that would give off no wave of nostalgia when being discarded late on Holi day. Outside, you could hear groups of children already starting the celebrations as screams and shouts and squeals of laughter filled the air when someone was hit with a water balloon or dunked in a bucket of cold colored water. Adults displayed their child-side too freely during Holi for the festival is synonymous with letting your hair down, merrymaking and an all-encompassing wave of fun and frolic. In other words, on Holi day one is allowed to let the child in oneself come out and indulge oneself completely.
The sweet smell of melt-in-your-mouth Gujias and the resplendence of all the colors of the rainbow coming alive on faces and arms and heads all around - all combined with some good humored play and chases up and down the street - that is what Holi will mean to me as it stays in my mind full of innocence getting drenched in water with a tousled head colored bright yellow or green or pink and with a mouth-watering Gujia in fingers painted purple!
It was during the time that we used to stay in Type 2 houses of the President's Estate. In those days, there used to be just a low compound wall separating the boundary of the Estate from the main road outside. Beside the wall grew a Peepal tree that served as a companion to many a lonely childhood heart and as a merry partner to groups of enthusiastic youngsters intent on games. Many a memorable eve did we friends spend talking, gossiping, giggling and exchanging secrets beside that Peepal whose warmth extended down to us even when the poor soul was without leaves at the peak of Winter. And the festival of colors too managed to leave its colorful fingerprints on the old Peepal!
Come Holi day and the early morning sun would be eagerly awaited so as to spread his warmth over the chill of the morning and make way for a rollicking afternoon! We kids would get busy filling up our water pistols and scores of balloons with colored water. The kind of clothes one wore too needed attention as they were bound to get unwearable by the day end. So, we hunted around in our cupboards looking for the oldest and most worn out and faded clothes that would give off no wave of nostalgia when being discarded late on Holi day. Outside, you could hear groups of children already starting the celebrations as screams and shouts and squeals of laughter filled the air when someone was hit with a water balloon or dunked in a bucket of cold colored water. Adults displayed their child-side too freely during Holi for the festival is synonymous with letting your hair down, merrymaking and an all-encompassing wave of fun and frolic. In other words, on Holi day one is allowed to let the child in oneself come out and indulge oneself completely.
The sweet smell of melt-in-your-mouth Gujias and the resplendence of all the colors of the rainbow coming alive on faces and arms and heads all around - all combined with some good humored play and chases up and down the street - that is what Holi will mean to me as it stays in my mind full of innocence getting drenched in water with a tousled head colored bright yellow or green or pink and with a mouth-watering Gujia in fingers painted purple!
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