Holi Moly

The festival of Holi is one of India's most anticipated days of the year, especially in the Hindu belt around the national capital Delhi, where it is celebrated with particular fervor. Jenna and I just happened to be in Delhi on Sunday for Holi and, as you can see by the pictures, we got caught up in the colorful excitement. Luckily, we planned ahead: I bought a cheap white shirt just for the occasion and we both wore clothes we were intending on throwing away anyway.

Holi commemorates the start of spring, and Indians of all ages roam the streets throwing brightly colored dye on each other and smearing passers by with dye and sticky paint. Small children (and some big ones, too) even loaded up Super Soakers with colored water and trained their weapons on anyone who dared come within range. It was common to come across bouts of urban warfare between groups of adolescent boys spraying and throwing dye across the alleys at each other.

For the most part, it was a joyous occasion, as locals politely walked up to us and blessed us with orange, pink, teal, and purple dye. Most even hugged us and said, "Happy Holi". Only a few seemed to have lost their manners. Overall, it was an exhilerating experience.

Jenna and I had left Calcutta earlier in the week. Our good friends from Texas, Andres Lopez and Celina Moreno, made a once-of-a-lifetime journey to see us. They met us in Calcutta and then asked if we would go with them to Delhi, so they could see the Taj Mahal. With our visas issues thankfully resolved, we were able to say 'yes'. Gladly, it allowed us to participate in Holi. Unfortunately, Andres and Celina had to leave to catch their flight home at one in the morning of Holi, so they missed the action but were able to see some early starters over the weekend.

Due to Andres's and Celina's visit, I was not able to update the blog regularly over the past couple of weeks. In coming posts, I will be reviewing some of the past week when they were here as well as updating the loyal readers on our new adventure: a driving trek through the desert state of Rajasthan.

Some boys threatened to shoot us with more dye even though we were already saturated, but we convinced them to settle having their picture taken.

It took a mere thirty minutes in the streets for us to look like this--as if we had been inside Willy Wonka's factory when it exploded. The dye came off pretty easily in the shower, though when it mixed together it looked a sickly brown washing down the drain. We still are finding random dyed spots on our skin more than 24 hours after our Holi festivities.