Pailful of Holi fun

I remember Holi in distant Delhi days. Growing up in an armed forces neighbourhood, my brother and I were part of a close-knit group of defence personnel and their families hailing from various states of the country. Regardless of creed and community, everyone enjoyed every festival.

For my brother and me, Holi celebrations began at the crack of dawn. After all, why should fun wait for the sun? If it was too chilly to venture outside, one could usher in Holi at home.

I would explain to my brother that we should start by pouring buckets of coloured water over each other. Younger than me by five years, he could never see the point of this unpleasant annual exercise. In fact, he would wail at the sight of a pail. Only my curt reminder that, when the festivities were at their height, he would be excluded from my gang of riotous companions could stifle my sibling’s sobs. Unfortunately, they were not always suppressed hastily enough.

My mother, awake long before us, would burst into the bathroom, convinced that one of her children was devouring the other. Nor had she any doubts about who was the victim. "What’s going on here?" she would demand, hovering protectively over my brother and staring suspiciously in my direction. Ready to whine, my brother would catch a menacing look from me. "We are playing Holi," he would reply, with a synthetic smile.

Our parents had no great attachment to Holi. This had nothing to do with matters of faith or Holi not being a Christian observance. They had the most enlightened (pun intended) attitude towards Diwali, an occasion on which we revelled in an assortment of sparklers, crackers, rockets, and other dazzling and deafening delights.

When it came to Holi, however, parental perception was coloured, so to speak, by the effect it had not only on our clothes but on our constitution.

We would return from our merry-making with perfectly good garments completely ruined. Later, we would go to bed with coughs and colds brought on by our sodden state.

Looking back, I recall with wonder my soaking self. It seems incredible that I could have joyfully endured such discomfort. My brother, on the other hand, regularly relives his colourful past by daring to drench and be drenched. The boy who was once afraid to burst water balloons is now a Holi terror!