HOLI !!!!

Since midpoint, Udaipur has seen a pretty consistent flow of Fellows visiting but last week was definitely the busiest, with four Fellows coming into town for Holi, two of whom also brought friends. My roommate Ginny also had her boyfriend in town so all of us got some hotel rooms in the old city to celebrate Holi, one of the biggest events in the year.

The night before Holi, local neighborhoods get together to build idols for burning. I believe as the story goes, there is some evil that gets purged with fire and the celebration ensues the following day with loads of color. Along with all the new visitors and my existing friends at Seva Mandir, we took to the heart of Udaipur to see the largest event. I often find these events to be a bit disappointing, sometimes due to hype, sometimes due to my lack of understanding the cultural context. This night was completely the opposite.

      

We probably should have known something was awry when we arrived about five minutes before the scheduled burning and were given easy access to the front of the crowd. We found some of my other friends who were further back and moved over to meet them. As we waited for the festivities to begin, we heard some cheering as a bull came storming through the packed street. Luckily nobody was injured as the bull was prodded along through the crowd. As things started to settle down we began to hear the fireworks going and it was then that I noticed why you don’t want to stand in the front row. Somehow we had missed the row of fireworks lining the ground where had initially been standing. As the fireworks-fuse reached the idol in the middle of the crowd, people began to light the evil idol and light more fireworks. It is a bit hard to describe how crazy it was but the experience taught me why you never want to be in the place where they launch fireworks into the sky as one of the bigger ones accidentally went off on the ground shooting fireworks debris into the crowd. Awesome.

As eventful as the night before Holi was, the actual day was no let down either. For those who are unfamiliar with Holi, it is a day when everyone gets covered with color and water in absolute madness. I don’t even think I can do justice in describing the day so I’m just going to put a few pictures here and then more in a new album.

    
  

    

After Holi, I went with some Fellows on a day trip to a local hill station and then to Ahmedabad for a bash. Those trips deserve their own blog posting so I will hold off and write those later.

Enjoy the Holi pictures.