Udaipur: Holi Festival

March 1, 2010

It’s Holi Festival Day (and also my brother Duke’s birthday – Happy Birthday Duke). It is so hard to explain this insanely wonderful holiday. We were warned and ready with our old cloths and camera tucked away in a zip lock bag. As you walk out in the streets you are accosted by everyone and anyone with bright colored powder to the face or anywhere else with the greeting of “Happy Holi.” Usually the powder is rubbed on the cheeks or face, or piled on your head. We too are armed with bags of pink, purple, yellow and orange kumkum powder (like powdered water color). We spent the morning walking, ducking, and being sprayed with powder and squit guns. It was mostly boys and men on the streets along with other tourists, as most women are not insane enough to go on the streets with boys that get a little too friendly with their hands. What a blast!!! Cops were out clubbing any boy getting out of hand and (multi-colored)cows were running for dear life. Once again we had our picture taken by the media – we’ll see what happens to the photo. After hours of inhaling powder and spitting rainbows, we plant our multicolored butts on the steps of the temple to observe the insanity. The pictures tell the rest and needless to say our faces are stained red, pink and green from the powder. Steve is now celebrating Easter too as his head looks like a colored Easter egg gone bad.

Laurie