Holi Festival, India's Riot of Color

Today, 21st March is the Universal Spring Day, the vernal equinox, when both day and night are of equal length. In our secular India, five faiths are celebrating today, each in its own way: the Hindus celebrate Holi. Zoroastrians, who fled religious prosecution in Persia about 1000 years ago, are celebrating Naoroz. It's Good Friday for Christians and Purim for Jews. Purim too is celebrated to mark the exodus of Jews from Persia. Muslims are celebrating Id-e-Milad, the Prophets birthday. All communities join in greeting each other. It is all about victory of good over evil, and a commonwealth of Humanity. This is also that season of the year, where all over the world people celebrate, some sort of Carnival or the other. So is it with India. Today, India celebrates its most boisterous festival Holi, the Festival of Colors. It marks the burning of demoness Holika: victory of Good over Evil. Others believe that this festival celebrates the fun and frolics of India's most beloved and playful God, Lord Krishna, and his flirtations with his consort Radha and other milkmaids, who were always jealous of Radha, and the other way round. With his flute, this dark and mischievous God casts a spell over the entire world. This was the call Divine! Our culture finds a convenient explanation for this love and ribaldry, by believing that all these stories, songs and folk dances, which run in our blood, reflect the yearning of the Soul to merge with the Almighty! Different regions and communities in the country have their own name for this festival and explanations about its origins.

Holi has had a special place in my heart, for its license to be mischievous. At night, all members of the family go around the Holi bonfire, tossing cereals into that fire. As kids we used to get up quietly next morning and smear faces of our elders with colors, while they were still in bed. Or better still, dunking them with colored water sprayed from our color syringes. And then gleefully shout, "Never mind, all is excused. This is Holi"! Then every one comes out to the lawn, chasing each other, with colors. Holi has always been a great leveler and a day when all is forgiven. All big and small, masters and servants, the maids and washer men - all hug and taunt each other in most colorful manner, just like equals. Estranged relatives and friends come and play Holi, hugging each other and exchanging sweets - all real and imaginary misgivings of the past are forgiven and forgotten! Hurt relationships start afresh. Then the drums are struck, to accompany the singing and dancing to Holi songs. Most of the songs are about Krishna frolicking with Radha and other milkmaids, full of naughty innuendoes. Ribaldry, at least once year, was forgiven! Well, Cut...... I am getting carried away. This article is not about Holi. It is about what 'bhang' did to me! 'Bhang' (cannabis) is a psychotropic drug used in India, in many religious ceremonies,

Since childhood I have had bhang-laced sweets and almond milkshakes for every Holi. Granny used to order our milkman to bring 'bhang' leaves and then the servants of the house used to pound them very fine, with mortar and pestle. I also used to take turns doing the same. I used to wonder, why there was so much fuss about 'bhang'. I had never felt any difference after taking that bhang-laced stuff. Then that day came, when I knew it all. We were living in Madras, where I was the Regional Manager for south India, for my company. We had a big house with half an acre compound. For Holi and other festivals, we had an open house for our colleagues and friends. By word of mouth, other North Indians also used to gravitate and join our festivities. Color powders, 'bhang' laced milkshakes and sweets were all laid out, for our guests. The visitors used to pick up small glasses of 'bhang' on a table placed near the entrance. One Holi, I must have been in a particularly welcoming mood. I stood at the gate and welcomed each visitor. They took a glass of 'bhang' and I took a glass, toasting with a 'Holi Mubarak'. So there were almost as many glasses of bhang inside me, as there were guests. Later, I learnt that 'bhang' was tasteless. Second, it starts taking effect only after a couple of hours. You never knew when you had crossed your limit. Now, unwittingly I had had one too many. It had been all on an empty stomach. The merrymaking was getting over and now it was time for a lunch. When only a few close friends were left, I suddenly got the feeling of weightlessness. As if I was levitating. I felt great. Then I felt that possibly I was not finishing my sentences. So I would repeatedly start all over again. I was half-aware that perhaps others were looking on in amazement. The moment I realized this, I wanted everyone to scoot pronto and leave me alone. The typical and elaborate Indian niceties of departure were taking too long. I could hardly see the last couple off, when I rushed upstairs to my bedroom and plunked in the bed.

I had read Huxley's 'Doors of Perception' and also a lot about LSD and good and bad trips. I had also read about hallucinogenic and psychedelic experiences. But I would have never even dreamed of ever giving it a try. I do not know what I experienced, but this is what it was:
A wave of ecstasy lapped over me. I was lying with my eyes were closed and I saw a TV color screen. I heard the piano pounding into my ears, a Chopin polonaise. It was the same piece I had heard in 'Song to Remember' (1945), a movie about Chopin. The TV screen was a visual treat, with changing patterns and colors, in tune with the movements of that great musical piece. It was Ecstasy! But, as in real life Agony soon followed Ecstasy. Chopin and his music disappeared. Now it was acid rock burning my ears and the TV showed a color CT scan of my brain, in profile. I could see my grey matter. So far so good! But then right to left, those cells in my grey matter were gradually turning black. I panicked. I was witnessing the slow death of my own brain, in real time.

As if that was not bad enough, I just remembered that next day I had to get up, go to the airport and pick up our Chief, who was coming from Germany, along with his family. My colleagues and I had to give him a presentation about our performance in the South. I got up with a jerk. Those tenacious colors on my face would never go away fully by tomorrow. I rushed to the bathroom. Gave my face and neck a scrub, first with soap, then shampoo, and then with a really hard wet towel. There was no hope of all this going away. What a fool I would make of myself at the airport. This could write off my carrier! Then it occurred to me that things were not all that bad. All this was just a dream. "Now, I will get up and confidently go and see myself in the mirror of my wife's dressing table", I said to myself. But the mirror on the wall showed me the same truth, about my color-scarred face. I came to my bed, rested for a while and then again I thought that all this had been a dream and now I will go and see myself in the bathroom mirror. As I was repeatedly doing this spiel, my wife walked up and watched in horror, my sleepwalking between bathroom, bed and dressing table. She rang up the two couples who had left the last, to find out how they were faring. Mrs. Harihar said, "I just don't know what's happening. Ever since we have come back, Hari is sitting cross-legged and whenever I say anything to him, he bawls "Don't disturb me, don't you see I am levitating"! He insists that we should go for the office Holi party in the evening on his motorcycle. He doesn't want to ride in the safety of the more stable car!" Then she rang up Sigrid Agarwal, a German lady, who said, "Mahesh has got up four times from bed, and shouted why I had not yet kept the lunch ready. He eats, goes to sleep and then gets up and shouts again, why I have not prepared any lunch! Apart from lunch at your place, he has already had lunch four times"!

Somehow, the Harihars and the Agarwals made it in the evening to the office Holi party. I, the boss and the host was conspicuously missing. Somehow, by next morning I had normalized, though some shades of pink were still visible on my face and neck. Luckily for me, the big chief from Germany was quite familiar with the raucous manner in which Holi was played in the North India. During the lunch break, we clinked our beer glasses and said "Prost'. This episode frightened the wits out of me. I had always been so confident, that I never lost control over myself. That cockiness was gone. Now unwittingly, I had lived through drug-induced Agony and Ecstasy. Never mind the ecstasy, but the agony continues to still haunt me. I promised myself, that from now on I will never do anything, which in any way would make me lose control over myself. "Holi Mubarak"!

For full taste of Holi, I invite you to the associated slideshows:
1. http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/3437/holi_festival_indias_riot_of_color.html , and
2. http://www.associatedcontent.com/slideshow/3439/holi_festival_indias_riot_of_color.html