Holi

Major religious festival celebrated on the
full moon in the lunar month of
Phalgun (February–March), which in
northern India comes very close to the
end of the lunar year. Holi is essentially a
festival of reversal and is celebrated with
great enthusiasm throughout much of
India. As the lunar year’s final major festival, the celebrations for Holi mirror the
pattern of cosmic dissolution found in
other units of time, whether the solar
day or the basic unit of cosmic time, the
mahayuga. In this pattern, the order in
the cosmos steadily deteriorates until all
order finally disappears, but after a certain time is suddenly, completely, and
perfectly reformed.
The festival of Holi is celebrated in
two parts: a bonfire on the evening
before Holi, and the “festival of colors”
on the morning of Holi itself. Material for
the bonfire is collected in the weeks
before Holi and although the things put
on this bonfire pile are supposed to be
old and worn-out (with the symbolism of
getting rid of the old), much newer
things are often put on it as well, and this
is a time in which people guard their
possessions carefully.
The days before Holi see the breakdown of various social taboos. In his The
Divine Hierarchy, author Lawrence Babb
reports the use of obscenity and bawdy
discourse during this time, including
stamping the word “penis” all over town
using stamps carved from potatoes. As
Holi gets closer, pranks such as pelting
passersby with water balloons become
more and more common. Such behavior
is ultimately harmless, but is still completely unacceptable in ordinary times
and symbolizes the coming cosmic dissolution. On the night of Holi, the bonfire is lit, symbolizing the destruction of
the old, and people may direct obscenities toward the fire as a vehicle for getting rid of enmities from the previous
year. Mythologically, the bonfire comes
from the burning of the demon Holika,
who tries to trick her brother Prahlada
into being burned on a bonfire, but is
herself consumed by the flames.
The morning after the bonfire is the
high point of Holi, the “festival of colors.”
For weeks before Holi, the shops in the
markets display mounds of powders in
various colors, most commonly in vivid
greens, reds, and purple; the colors are
used as powder, or are mixed with water.
People play with the colored water using
syringes or balloons. In the gentlest type
of play, each person takes a small pinch
of colored powder and gently applies it
to the other person’s forehead. Needless
to say, the play with colors can often
become much rougher, with people
smearing and soaking each other with
colors, dyeing each other’s clothing in
multiple hues, and often staining the
skin for weeks afterward.
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Holi
The evening before the festival of Holi, men in Delhi arrange
colored powders to prepare the site for a bonfire.
This and all other Holi-related antics
are always described as “play” (khel),
and the operating assumption is that
one cannot become angry with the people with whom one is playing, no matter
how outrageous the behavior or how
pointed the insults. The festival of Holi is
the one day in the year when the boundaries of the usual social hierarchy are
completely disregarded, along with the
taboos on physical touching that are primarily based on the inherent concern for
ritual purity. Another characteristic of
Holi is that it is one of the few occasions
when socially respectable people consume bhang, an intoxicating preparation made from ground-up marijuana.
The morning passes in a welter of
noise, confusion, and color, with (at
street level) absolutely no rules, symbolizing the chaos of cosmic dissolution. Yet
in the afternoon, cosmic (and social)
order are suddenly restored. People take
baths, change into new clothes, and go
out visiting without fear of being colored, and any person bold enough to
pelt someone with dyes at this time is
subject to severe disapproval.
In recent times, particularly in the
larger cities, the license associated with
Holi has been taken as an opportunity
for all sorts of antisocial behavior: public
drunkenness, molesting women, destroying property, and the chance to settle old
grudges by physically harming people.
The chaos is so intense that in larger
cities many people stay in their houses
on Holi, “playing” with members of their
immediate family in the gentler spirit
that is characterized as “true” Holi.
Given the threat to public order, the
government has taken some action, but
the very nature of the holiday makes it
difficult to regulate—since it is a festival
of reversal, the government is one more
force to be disregarded on that morning.
Various government agencies have also
tried to discourage the practice of making bonfires, although here the concern
stems from worries about deforestation
rather than the breakdown of social
order. For further information see
McKim Marriot, “The Feast of Love,” in
Milton Singer (ed.), Krishna: Myths, Rites,
and Attitudes, 1966; and Lawrence Babb,
The Divine Hierarchy, 1975.