Holi: A festival for integrity

Holi is a festival of joy; it is a festival to cherish beautiful colors of your life; it is meant to respect victory of truth over devil and to bring people together; it is meant to enjoy with as many people as you can. It’s always good to fill lives of people with colors. Not only these colors of Holi touch people physically but emotionally these colors leave an unbound and loving impact somewhere inside.

In today’s world, when people are busy in their own lives they don’t realize how far they are going from people who surrounds them. Only social networking has become a sole reason of connection with people.

This festival is meant to break this stereotype at least once a year. Everyone wants a colorful life and Holi gives us a chance to realize this. These colors are meant to spread a feeling of oneness, happiness and joy everywhere.

On this Holi, I enjoyed a lot with my friends. We were six people standing near Mahamaya temple when we saw the board of old age home in front of us. We decided to go inside and celebrate Holi with people there. I remember when we entered the gate; there was only silence which we were feeling. As we took some steps further, we heard a voice “RAM RAM”. Kritika, as a resident of that area was accustomed to these words; the old man who was sitting there had made his habit to converse with people and wish them “RAM RAM”. We said the same in return.

We asked them to play Holi with us. We made their face colorful and all of them were smiling. When we took photographs with them, they were enthusiastic and happy to cherish those moments with us. They blessed us and we left the place but before we could leave, that old man again said, “Kal bhot log aayenge tum bhi ana beta”. We smiled and gave him a nod.

We stood at a nearby place to have a chit chat where Riya and Geetanjali dared me to color policemen’s face with Holi. I accepted and went to him. At first he denied but then agreed to put on a Holi tika. As I came back to my friends, an uncle came and he asked us to put on Holi tika to his face. There was another women sitting and watching our mischiefs. She was smiling at us.

I went to her and asked whether I could put colors to her face. She was delighted and we spread colors to her face. She was not known yet she was happy to celebrate Holi with us. I think somewhere we are lacking in connecting with people. It’s an important part and I realized the need of this connection this year on Holi.

All I learnt this Holi is that it’s not just physical colors that we put on people but it’s more than it. Your single touch of delight can make someone’s day. These colors remind us the need of addressing people. It teaches us to spread colors and bring smile to their faces!