Holi festival : A celebration of color

With throwing of coloured dye(popularly known as Gulal) along with water balloons at friends and neighbours and later in the day, families gathering together for festive meals including traditional sweets like gujiya, holi is the India’s most vivid, colourful and joyous festival which has now gained popularity Internationally as well. Holi is known to be a festival of color, joy, spring and also a festival signifying victory of good over evil. Holi is celebrated at the end of winter, on the last full moon day of the Hindu luni-

solar calendar month marking the spring, making the date vary with the lunar cycle. The date falls typically in March, but sometimes late February. On the day of Holi, entire streets and towns turns colourfull red, green and yellow as people throw gulal into the air and splash them on others. Each color in itself carries a significance. Red, for example, symbolizes love and fertility while green stands for new beginnings. People also splash water on each other in celebration.

According to one popular version of the story, an evil king - Hiranyakashyap became so powerful that he forced his subjects to worship him as their god. But to the king’s ire, his son Prahlada continued to be a keen devotee of the Hindu deity Lord Vishnu. The angry king plotted with his sister, Holika, to kill his son. Holika, who was immune to fire, tricked Prahlada to sit in a pyre with her. When the pyre was lit, Lord Vishnu who was pleased by Prahlada’s devotion helped him by appearing as half-lion and half-man avtar known as Narasimha Narayana ,and in the end Prahlada walk away unhurt while Holika, from whom the festival derives its name, was burned to death despite her immunity hence good conquered evil. One of the another story tied to the Holi Festival is that of Goddess Radha and Lord Krishna. As the eighth incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, Krishna is seen by many as the supreme god. Krishna is said to have blue skin as he drank poisonous milk from a demon when he was a baby. Krishna fell in love with the goddess Radha, but feared she would not love him because of his blue skin – but Radha allowed Krishna to dye her skin with color, making them a true couple making it a festival of color and love.