I remember holi not because of colors but because of something else. And that something else is my childhood; I mean upto Jr. college level. The colors were kept for Rangapanchami i.e. fifth day from holi. We used to celebrate holi with burning evening. This is actually the previous evening of holi day and its full moon. The preparations would start one week before and would never end till last minute. We, the children in our area (there were different areas like C type, D type, Shahenshah galli etc.) would assemble at one point after school and would plan for the holi day. There were some seniors among us who were by default managers. They divide us in small groups of 2-3 and assign us different areas. Then we would disperse and our task was to find as much woods as possible. It was real fun in searching for woods that too burnable. Since we were living in a government colony, there were separate houses for higher ups and that too surrounded by wooden compound. The most compounds were made of bamboo sticks tied together and that was our main masala for holi. So our job was to identify those bamboo compounded houses which were vacant. After identifying, 4-5 persons would go and remove those bamboos and would carry them to safe destination. This safe destination means somebody’s own backyard and that person was advised to keep an eye on them. Then one day before holi, we would take all masala to a holi place. This was the place where all masala would be burnt. The masala composition was, a shevar tree at centre, then all woods and then dry grass as filler. Then on holi day, we would go to invite people in our area and for collection for evening function. In evening our function would start. All mothers in the area would come with pooja thalis and after performing pooja and breaking coconut, masala would be burnt. As flames start touching the skies, we would run around the holi shouting ‘holi re holi, pooranachi poli’. It was so much fun and it was burning evening. Now when I think of those days, I remember of planning, team work, execution and satisfaction after project completion. Ok bye now, I am celebrating this holi with colors.
- Prasad