Today has been a day like no other at the Kalkaji Asha center. It is the afternoon right now and English classes have been abandoned today. This is partly because there are so few students that classes are hardly worth taking. (My students are doing board exams at school and are increasingly reluctant to attend my class during this month of exams!) Mostly, however, it is because tomorrow is the Hindu festival of colours, Holi, and the traditional war of colour has already began!
I can't say I know much about the festival as far as the Hindu faith is concerned but the general theme is hard to miss. Even perfect strangers have approached me today and rubbed vibrantly coloured powder into my face and hair and rapped me in a warm embrace! Wherever I have gone in the last few days I have been under the constant fear of a water-bomb bombardment from all angles and it seems to be a country wide battle - something akin to a food fight only with water and often quite toxic powdered dyes. My face is presently covered in a rich crimson and spots of every conceivable colour cover me from head to toe!
One thing I have noticed about the festivals here is that they tend to transcend a single date in the calendar. If Holi is on Wednesday then it really means that festival will reach it's climax on that day. I am only glad that this one isn’t as frightening as Diwali was which, being the festival lights, gave people ample excuse to blow up everything in sight with surprisingly powerful bangers and set off fireworks haphazardly in the streets. I was in a quiet Tibetan town in the Himalayas for Diwali and even there it was a considerably alarming experience. I remember sitting in an sheltered veranda in the evening during the week before Diwali, having some traditional Tibetan food (which as far as I have discovered, consists almost entirely of different varieties of noodles: long noodles, short noodles, wide noodles, flat noodles, square noodles, etc.!!) when there was a deafening explosion in the street behind me which made all who were present jump with surprise and alarm. It was followed a second later by the gentle rattle of falling debris on the tin roof above us. It turned out to be a mischievous young monk from local monastery setting off what I think was described as a “chocolate bomb” and this was the first of many such explosions during that week! Come Diwali itself, it may not be an overstatement to describe the atmosphere of the town as something of a war-zone!
Not too much to worry about this Holi season though; just the people throwing water-bombs at cars and such which on the whole feels less threatening than explosive devices!
I have an exciting upcoming few weeks to look forward to. I have been granted two weeks holiday from Asha because of the lull in students attending my class during exams and as of Friday I will be leaving Delhi for the sandy expanse of the Thar desert in Rajasthan followed by a return to the heady heights of the Himalayas once again…
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