Holi in Jaipur - Festival of colors

One of the things I wanted to experience while in India was the Holi Festival.

Holi celebrates the start of spring and happens at different dates every year in March depending on the lunar calendar. Depending on the region the festival can take 2-10 days. On the first day, it only becomes interesting half an hour before midnight.

Burning of Holika

Then a bonfire is lit on the streets in the neighbourhood to burn a straw representation of demon Holika. The story goes like this (copied from Wikipedia):

King Hiranyakashipu, the father of Prahlada, was the king of demonic Asuras and had earned a boon that gave him five special powers: he could be killed by neither a human being nor an animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither at day nor at night, neither by astra (projectile weapons) nor by any shastra (handheld weapons), and neither on land nor in water or air. Hiranyakashipu grew arrogant, thought he was God, and demanded that everyone worship only him. Hiranyakashipu's own son, Prahlada, however, remained devoted to Vishnu. This infuriated Hiranyakashipu. He subjected Prahlada to cruel punishments, none of which affected the boy or his resolve to do what he thought was right. Finally, Holika, Prahlada's evil aunt, tricked him into sitting on a pyre with her. Holika was wearing a cloak that made her immune to injury from fire, while Prahlada was not. As the fire spread, the cloak flew from Holika and encased Prahlada, who survived while Holika burned. Vishnu, the god who appears as an avatar to restore Dharma in Hindu beliefs, took the form of Narasimha
– half human and half lion (which is neither a human nor an animal), at dusk (when it was neither day nor night), took Hiranyakashipu at a doorstep (which was neither indoors nor outdoors), placed him on his lap (which was neither land, water nor air), and then eviscerated and killed the king with his lion claws (which were neither a handheld weapon nor a launched weapon).

 

Day 2 - people on the road are already coloured 

On the second day, we joined some other friends and family at an outdoor venue and smeared each other's faces and bodies with colourful powder. As that was not enough we threw water and used water guns and soon streams of coolers ran down on us. Best time to get some new colours and look for your next victim:-). In between, we danced, we sang, we laughed and had a lot of fun.

Sankalp & Chris

Janya & Chris

Chris & Siddhi

On the way home & to the shower

It only took 5 rounds of shampooing my hair and body to get most of it out but some (especially yellow and pink) remained for a couple of days.

The coloured powder is available at stalls everywhere - in small, medium and big bags. Or also at the supermarket just with a fancier packaging. I got my colours in Rishikesh on the street.