Holly, Holy Dream..

Ok I don’t know why but when I found out that the Indian festival/holiday of Holi was pronounced “holy” vs. “holly”, all I could hear in my head was Neil Diamond singing his song. Of course the song and Neil Diamond have nothing to do with India and yet the mental mix up of me calling the holiday Holi as “holly” was politely not corrected by my neighbors and friends here in Pune. It was only until another expat told me the truth that I started to pronounce the name correctly and of course start belting out Neil Diamond.

So what is the Holi holiday? I want you all to know I did no google searching or asking chatGBT for help on this answer. My understanding is that it is the first full moon around or before the Spring Equinox. And this year it was on a Tuesday. Of course in the US we like to pack our holidays in to 3 day weekends so dates aren’t as important (I think Christmas and the 4th of July are the only holidays celebrated on the actual day). But here in India the day is the day. I went to work Monday and it was like a Friday. I had tomorrow off to celebrate something I only vaguely knew about from the United Airlines “buckle your seatbelt” video (my son Nathan reminded me of this). My understanding is that Holi celebrates the victory of good over evil and light over darkness. Not sure if that is all of it but that is what I got. Reminded me alot of one of our Christian holidays Easter — the victory over death and the total defeat of Satan by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

The experience of Holi starts on the night before the holiday. I was told that this was the “spiritual” part of the holiday and the Holi day was for partying (sort of like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?…I am trying folks…). So on the night before at sunset when the full moon rises they light these fires. Made out of wood you may ask? It is India, do you think it would be that simple? Of course not, its made of sacred and holy (yes I used the word) cow manure pies!!

There does appear to be wood in the above but still a lot of cow pies.

The next day you get in whatever clothes you want to ruin. We went and of course got plain white linen clothes that cost about 1,000 INR (thats about $12). Here is what we looked like before the festival:

So we went out, dressed in white, with out smiling faces and cute pig tailed baby to the party. Note – for most Indian holidays liquor stores are closed and it is not allowed to be served at least in Maharashtra. However, Holi is an exception. Drinks start at 11am sharp. We joined an expat group that was celebrating at a nearby boat club. We showed up at the beginning so the crowds were light but what we experienced was a blast.

First of all INCREDIBLY loud music and not just on the dance floor it was everywhere and it NEVER stopped. Our poor baby didnt care much for it but I was having flashbacks of a decade back in a Las Vegas nightclub soaking in the energy and staying up naturally till 5am. I can’t do that any more!

This guy brought the drums right to my ear drums but he was loving it and had a huge smile on his face so why not get a photo?

Holi centers around a few things – eating and drinking of course but also the throwing of colors (best described by me as colored powdered sugar as far as how it felt) on to others. This is to show the light being present in our world. The colors at our party were organic and didn’t burn or cause anyone to get sick.

There is also a rain dance which in this case was a huge misting dance floor.

So for two hours we became like kids again. Grabbing powder and throwing it in each others faces and clothes (sometimes laughing sometimes with repressed anger). They also had squirt guns and air tubes that kids would fill with water and the colors and spew a stream of color water all over you!

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves although Tenley did not. She wanted out of there, hated the colors, and of course the mist rain. But we had a good time and got to celebrate Holi local style. We can’t wait for next year. Here are some of the after pictures and those outfits aren’t white any more!