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The dark side of HOLI

Hello readers!

I read an article few days back and I would like to share it with you guys. Its the sad reality which might be difficult to digest, but ultimately that's the truth!

So basically, this article is written by Saramelotti.

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Holi. The Festival of colors. The Hindu celebration of good overcoming evil, of the arrival of spring and the ending of winter. A big day in India: people are out in the streets partying and dancing and laughing and throwing gulal (natural powder color) at each other…a pretty fun and happy scenario right? Not for me! I can honestly say that Holi was one of the most horrible experiences of my life.

I’m going to piss a few people off with this post, it’s inevitable, so let me start by saying that i LOVE India and Indian People. I have many friends from India and I owe a lot of my personal growth to this incredibly beautiful and diverse country. This is not about India, this is not about men, this is about how a few men behave and how it feels to be a woman around that behavior. Keep this in mind when you read what follows! 

I was in Varanasi during Holi. It was my last day there and I had a flight to catch that night. I was on assignment for an agency, the assignment was to document the festival. Since it’s always very romanticized by the media I was expecting a super fun and eclectic experience (and naively i thought the colors were made of natural ingredients like turmeric and such).

When a few days earlier,  back in Delhi, I told my friend Ruchie I was going to be out in the streets for Holi she warn me not to do it. She didn’t get into details but she said ” People get really rowdy, stay inside!”.  I thought she was exaggerating and being overprotective (I’m tiny!) so I smiled and didn’t give it much thought.

The closer it got to Holi the more people told me I should stay inside so I started worrying a bit, but I had an assignment to complete and work is work. The day before the festival I met a very nice British guy and he said he’ll be out by the Gaths and to text him if I was out on my own, I felt a million times better!

The morning of Holi I was ready to go out in the streets of Varanasi on my own but the owner of my guesthouse, a guy my age, invited me to go with him and some other guests to celebrate on a friend’s rooftop. I wrapped my camera in as many plastic bags I could and went with them. I was ready to get covered in colors but I was absolutely not ready for what was coming…

The moment we stepped outside it was like being in a war-zone where bullets were replaced by water: kids everywhere shooting at you with their water guns in the narrow alleys (water mixed with color), guys throwing water bombs from their windows and balconies, people smearing gulal on your face, more kids pooring buckets on your head. At some point I’m pretty sure I had gasoline sprayed on me…Madness! but it was cool, it was kind of fun.

We get to the friend’s rooftop and it’s just a bunch of foreigners  throwing more water at each other. I can’t stay here, that’s not the kind of pictures the agency wanted from me—they wanted pictures of locals covered in powder colors—so I convince a few guys I just met to head out to the main gaths with me. 

When we got there I didn’t notice anything strange at first. The kids were all gone and now the crowd was made mainly by adults. Most of my attention was on my camera, I was worried it would get damaged so I was very focused trying to shoot without getting it ruined. The situation is pretty intense now!

I want to meet up with the British guy but I can’t even take my cellphone out, Everything happens fast, there’s people and water and powder coming from every direction, everything is hectic and overwhelming. After a few minutes we’re out there a group of happy—and clearly wasted—teenage boys approach us and starts hugging everyone. I’m not in hugging mood but it’s a holiday and I don’t want to be rude. I get two hugs and the guys smear some powder on my face. I smile and let the 3rd guy hug me and….BAM! he grabs my boob!