Festivals are always about family time. They are about bonding and breaking bread together. So ushering in Holi or Diwali on your lonesome ownsome can be rather deflating. Anuja Kashyap (26), a content writer, who hails from Lucknow has not been home for Holi in three years now.
“It is just six hours by train from Delhi but managing a break is hard, especially if Holi falls on a weekday,” says Anuja, who plans to celebrate the festival watching TV and catching up on sleep.
Not for Udit Shukla is the ‘snipe-and-sleep’ route. This software developer, who hails from Kannauj, believes in living it up by playing pranks. “Obviously, you don’t feel good when you are alone on festivals. But you cannot cry. Instead, I have decided to mix colour in the building’s water tank and dunk passers-by,” he chortles.
Since any Holi celebration is incomplete without traditional delicacies like ‘gujiyas’, he has made arrangement for that as well. “I have asked my mother to courier some ‘gujiyas’. They may reach me after Holi but no matter,” he adds.
Manmeet, a marketing officer with a private firm, will enjoy Holi with friends at a farm house. “It’s better to surround yourself with friends instead of staying at home and watching TV. At our Holi parties, we usually have a DJ who plays power-packed music and we have ‘dhol’ artistes. We have water games and mud baths, which make Holi thrilling,” says Manmeet, who hails from Chandigarh.
“As for the food, there are gol gappa shots, bhang thandai, vodka chuski and rum gujia. Now what more can you ask for?” says Manmeet. A sure fire recipe to beat homesickness, you say?
