Holi...

It's time again for some splashing of colours.... I always loved and enjoyed thoroughly this festival. That was till class seven. Then there was measles one year, followed by chicken pox the next. The board exams played spoilsport the next three years, and after that I joined a college in which Holi was celebrated sans colours! Well, so be it, I said to myself, but soon discovered that Holi minus colours was like computers without operating systems... I still become nostalgic when I remember my days till class eight. We readied ourselves from the day before, with pichkaris and all that. On the day, from around 10 in the morning, the fun began. By 12, our parents were at a loss as to who was whose child. Each one of us looked a thousand times better that what our western brothers look on Halloween. And becoming drenched was the best part of the whole affair. Of course, there were teenage pranks played on friends. Some reached the extent that got our parents absolutely flabbergasted. Like for example when my father took me to the bathroom to scrub the tough colours off me, his eyebrows cocked up when he saw coloured foreign palm stamps on my buttocks and upper thighs, along with the rest of the body. But he only smiled and never said anything. I was so embarrassed! But then I needed Dad to take those colours off me. It was all so much fun... Even our teachers, who were required by the rules to punish us if we went to school with coloured faces, excused us. Because at times they too were unrecognisable.... But all that is lost now. This time I will be visiting a cousin's place in a village in Bankura to enjoy Holi with them. It will be fun alright, but not the wild kind that I so much miss every year. A Very Happy Holi!