Whelan's Travels: Holi, Holi, Holi

Us: Sir, what will you do to celebrate Holi?
Indian man: Children, I am holy every day!

Yesterday was the Indian festival Holi, and it was probably the coolest street festival I've ever been part of. The only contender is La Batalla del Vino, in Haro, La Rioja, Spain, which I attended in July or August of 2002 with my buddy Ben. At that festival, we celebrated an economic bounty -- the amount of wine produced in the La Rioja region -- by drinking all night, then having an early morning water gun fight, only it wasn't water (it was cheap red wine) and we didn't shoot each other with guns (but with leather wine skins). For Holi, some among us (I'll not say who) ate bhang, then smeared each other with "colour" -- or fine, oil-based paint powder in diffeerent pigments, threw water baloons at each other, doused each other with buckets of blood-colored water, and shot waterguns as well. Either festival, the result was the same. We came out completely stained pink, intoxicated, and thoroughly satisfied. That's Erin, up above showing off her rainbow skin, who took all of these pictures, by the way, because she was the only one willing to risk her camera. So she gets the flagship photo for this post.

So the deal is this. We're celebrating various things. Spring, first and foremost, but I don't really understand that because the difference between one season and the next in India is so negligible -- it's hot, then it get's hotter, then hotter, then it rains, then it's hot again -- that it's unclear why the ancients would need a Spring festival (praying for cool weather, maybe?). We're also jamming because of this mythological figure called Prahlad, who was really into Vishnu, and who thwarted his heinous father King Hiranyakashipu by resisting a totally bogus execution at the hands of his skank sister Holika by chanting Vishnu's name over and over again. Got it?

This guy, who stood, dazed, outside of one of the housing complexes in Mahim where we played holi (you "play holi" by smearing colour on people, then dousing them, then dancing in the streets to Marathi songs), mumbling "Photo, photo..." -- undoubtedly too busy thinking about Prahlad and Vishnu to do or think of anything else.

These guys are generously demonstrating the transformative spiritual powers of bhang, the aerated balls of marijuana that are ground into paste and powder and mixed with lassi or thandi, both delicious cold dairy drinks, to produce a mixture that gets you LOADED and in the proper spiritual fram

Here's my friend Jocelyn getting smeared, early on in the revelry --

We played holi in Erin's neighborhood of Mahim, which has a huge Maharashtrian population (as opposed to the dozens of other Indian ethnic identities that exist in other pockets of Bombay). That meant lots of Hindus, and therefore lots of Holi as opposed to the Catholic neighborhoods of the city, like mine, where Holi ain't so big. Kids like these were getting really into it (to the point of violence, almost), as well as singing songs in Marathi and in one strange case, shouting Shiv Sena slogans at me. Damn cute, though, aren't they?

The kids were having battles -- one housing society versus another, lobbing waterballoons over the divisions. It was great fun...

A bunch of cheeky girls hit me and Benji pretty bad, so we launched a counter-ambush with all the boys on our side. It was like camp, except I never went to camp, but was like what I imagine camp was sort of like...

I'm gonna call these guys The Ghouls. They were allies.

After soundly routing the nefarious girls, we joined the silvery Ghouls in an impromptu dance party which featured that guy in the middle singing lead vocals on some Marathi folk songs, and lots of Bollywood style pelvic thrusts. We were all guys, thrusting at one another, but believe me, it was cool.

There was a sort of George Romero feel to the whole afternoon, and I'm going to end with a few photos that are particularly Zombie-like. This is Erin, me, and Jocelyn, walking Reservoir Dogs-style down the middle of the empty streets, looking for live flesh...