Long back, on on such day of Holi, I happened to reach Varanasi. I heard about stories of how Holi is celebrated in that part of world but never pictured me as witnessing it. Unfortunately we were carrying only few clothes [travel light] and were very worried that they will get spoiled. It was almost 30 min. past one in the afternoon. As the train was reaching station, we got few coloured balloon thrown towards the window. We all were thinking whether to get down at all. The huge platform was almost empty when the train stopped. Patches of colour on the walls and long stretch of platform without people running behind each other. That was scary! We almost thought that riot started outside since Varanasi has a sizable Muslim population and skirmishes around celebration of festival used to be common. After a few peeking around, we decided to get out of the station and face whatever comes! It was already 2 PM. As we walked with our baggage, we were surprised that none is noticing us particularly, almost all shops were half-closed, road was checkered with dried colour, thanks to coloured water that was probably splashed on others just few hours back. As we went to the Auto-line, the auto driver greeted us and asked for the address of our destination. His face was fully coloured from ear to ear, we needed a moment to establish the eye-sight, for it was difficult to find the eyes readily. He did not appear to be bothered that we were wearing clean shirts which did not have a single speck of colours. One of us could not hide his curiosity and asked him, "People here do not play colours with outsiders, do they?". The auto driver smiled, "Actually, the celebration is over now. Had your train reached on time, you would not have had the need to ask this questions!"
We, probably for the first time, thanked the Railways authority for running the train late!
Though this is one of the most popular festival in North India, and the origin dates back to time before Christ, it is not clear how it was started. There is a story of Hiranyakashipu and burning of his sister 'Holika' in mythology. It is said that burning of 'Holika' to ashes marks the victory of 'good' over 'evil' and that gets celebrated with Holi. But there are other mythological stories too. The fact is this festival marks the advent of spring and in many parts it is celebrated as festival of spring as the sign of new beginning.
However, many believe that the festival was popularised in the modern format by the Vaishnavites. Vaishnavites celebrate this day also because Lord Chaitanya was born on this day.
Particularly entire Easter India and Uttar Pradesh associate Holi with love stories of Radha and Lord Krishna and that signifies the influence of Vaishnavism.
Whatever be the reason, the Holi celebration touches some fundamental chord of Indian psyche and undoubtedly is one of those events that help urban, highrise-living Indians to connect with each other even for few minutes.
Let me end this post with Raga Vasant which is identified with the joyfulness of spring and in Lt. Amir Khan's voice, the raga sounds magical. Here is the link for the inquisitives.
Happy Holi!
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