Blame it on Bhaang!

“I’m pledging to #KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories atBlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPMjKIUNGDI

Parchute and BlogAdda and media have declared Holi as one of India’s happiest festival. Well, that depends, on

• Your concept of India
• Your concept of Happiness.

For me Holi is a festival of dread. One reason being it is the time of the year when every god damn channel screams holi hai and thinks it is a license to incorporate holi into every episode whether it fits in or not. Also we are made to see infinite telecasts of rang barase and other drunken bawdy songs. Well I do have the option of turning the television off.

As for my childhood memory  of holi I grew up in Manipal and my memories of Holi is about drunken misbehaving north Indian students who destroyed books and molested girls. I thought I was biased. So I did call some of my older relatives who live in villages asking them what their memories of Holi were. Their precise reaction was, “Holi Holera habba” that is it is a festival of the farm laborers who were usually migrant workers from up north.

Holi in south Kanara today’s Udupi and South Kanara district, or like I normally refer to as Tulunaad, was a festival of the Kunbi tribes.They would come in a procession singing and dancing they would tipsy but not drunk,.Each house would give them rice and coconut. The Marata community was another community that celebrated holi they of course did it within the community colours were not thrown and property was not destroyed. Kunbi’s and Marata’s are both migratory tribes from the north.

Temples would have a special puja since Holi is associated with the full moon. Some houses used it as an excuse to cool something sweet. Otherwise it was a quite festival.

Things like thandai, are and were unheard of .

These days with the television boom we know of gujiya since every channel worth its salt will have either a Sanjiv Kapoor, a Tarala Dalal, or a Vikas someoneorthe other demonstrating it. we called these as Karjikayi and was made on other occasions like weddings and deepavali.

Its only after I went to Dharwad did I actually witness a holi!

My dread and dislike of the festival has increased over the past 25yrs, People begin throwing/ spraying colours from 7 am. Most of them come right into the house and mess up the houses. As for the family everyone is tired after the excitement, so they bathe and sleep off, but the festive, gujiya nonsense touted by the television has to appear, no one is satisfied with a Khichdi Khadi. 😦 .  oh! yes cooking begins only after a bath, whcih means after 12 noon, I do not think it is fair at all.

The actual nightmare begins the next day, when house cleaning, and laundry has to be done. I really do not see why I should get stressed about a festival that has no nostalgic bonding for me, it does not belong to my cultural ethos, and screws up my sedate present.

I rather turn on the television and look at the live telecast of lath maar holi of Mathura. I like to imagine that an domestic violence victim would use the opportunity to bash her husband up and get cheered for it. a young girl bashing her stalker up and blaming the bhang for it.