Delhi University's date with colours

Holi Fever

Delhi University’s favourite tagline off late has been Bura na mano, Holi Hai!

In the case of Delhi University, North Campus Holi arrived far earlier, since Saturday was the last working day before the Campus closed for vacations. Holi celebration saw hordes of colours, muck and mud as accompaniments to enthusiasm. While some grumbled and complained over being forcibly painted, others gave in to friends’ insistence while the rest chickened out! Metrolife took a round of North Campus to check out Holi 2012.

In Ramjas, the students were extremely enthusiastic and played Holi over two days. Ashish Jain, a Ist year student of Chemistry Honours cheekily explained, “Yesterday it was on a trial basis but today was the real show.” His classmate, Meenakshi Rohilla added, “We requested all the teachers to not take classes. Some agreed and the rest we boycotted.” What about absenteeism? “The best part is that the college has full attendance as everyone’s here to celebrate Holi with friends.”

The preparation for the festival seemed to bear out Rohilla’s assertion, for there were those who had come prepared. Daulat Ram College’s Nirmal Anand was spotted wearing a white T-shirt with ‘Holi’ written on it. “My friend gifted me this T-shirt for Holi,” she said.

“It is a part of our wardrobe now as we will keep it like this in future and cherish our memories from here.” But girls from Daulat Ram didn’t confine themselves to colours alone. They went a step ahead and dipped each other in mud. In the words of Sheetal Singh, “The mud bath this year on Holi is absolute fun. We are grabbing all one by one and dipping them in muck.”  While these youngsters were comfortable, few ducked out in time to avoid turning into mobile paintings! Vikas Kumar Pathak, a student of PGDAV college says he changed his route to avoid being caught by revellers.

“I don’t like playing Holi with anybody who wants to have fun by colouring somebody and so I took a different route on way to North Campus.” A similar opinion was shared by Kanika Walia, who is currently studying Portuguese at DU. Caught outside Arts Faculty, Kanika said, “I like playing Holi but only with my friends and not everyone who wants a chance to colour you on the pretext of the festival.”

At Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), green was the colour. Shreya Mahajan, a student of SRCC said, “I played Holi in the parking lot with my friends and we painted each other green.” But at the neighbouring Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Khalsa College a couple of girls were forcefully coloured by a group of boys and the scene turned rough.

Sunita, a witness to the unfortunate incident said, “Nobody should be forced. I am moving around in a group today to avoid falling prey to those intent on colouring girls forcibly.”

But there were those for whom the impromptu celebration turned out to be a pleasant surprise. An MSc student, Gaurav Kala came out of examination hall and was welcomed with gulal. He said, “I had no intimation this morning that there were plans of playing Holi. When I came out after attempting one of my internal exams, I was upset as my paper hadn’t gone well but then, the sudden shower of colours diverted me and now I am going back home in a happy mood.” Did someone say, bura na mano holi hai?