Holi - A Saga, Glory, or being woeful

“HOLI HAIIIIII”….. Yes!  It’s the most vibrant phrase uttered by the electrifying crowd of our country INDIA every year.  Holi is known as the festival of colours. It is celebrated with ebullience and mirth on full moon day. In spite of being a joyous festival, celebrating HOLI, hammers us to remember our demean history about Holika side by side in a commemoration of the divine love of Radha for Krishna. This festive officially occurs in spring with Holi celebrated as a Festival of love. Holi gets us close to our religion and inextricably linked with our mythology as it is essentially the celebration of various legends associated with the festival.  Though there are numerous legends describing the holi celebration, the foremost of all are Prahlad and Hiranyakashyap. Hiranyakashyap-the king of that time, full of haughtiness, wants everybody’s devotion towards him. To his great wrath, Prahlad began to worship lord Vishnu. To get rid of his son, the king asked Holika, his sister to enter into a blazing fire, with his son in her lap, as she had a boon to enter fire intact and reduced to ashes.

Additionally, Mythology also states that Holi is the celebration of death of Giantess Pootana who tried to kill infant, Krishna by feeding death-dealing milk to him.

Also, another path led to celebrate Holi, is the legend of Ogress Dhundhi who used to trouble children in the realm of Raghu, and was eventually chased away by the pranks of the children on the day of Holi. Showing their belief in the legend, children till now play pranks and catapult misemploy at the time of Holika Dahan. Celebration of these various myths associated with Holi, reassuring the people about the power of the truth, as the moral of all these legends manifests the ultimate victory of good over evil. Apart from all these parables, holi is celebrated at a time of the year when the fields are in full bloom and people are expecting a good harvest. This gives a people a good reason to rejoice, merry go round and immerse themselves in the spirit of Holi.

There are innumerable ways of memorializing holi in different states of our country. In some parts, it’s a belief that playing with colours help to promote good health as colours are said to have great impact on our body and our health. To further enhance the festive spirit of Holi celebrations we have a social sanction to get a kick with the tradition of bhang, dancing, playing with water etc.

The purpose of Holi is not to celebrate only the positive emotions but in some cases it serves as a legitimate way of expressing negative emotions might also be called for. 

Naturally this should not be used as an excuse for malicious behavior and should be done with a spirit of good humor as; Holi is after all a festival of triumph and euphoria, with the express purpose of healing society, preventing negative tendencies from overwhelming us. Another aspect of Holi is to help us break the barriers we have built around ourselves and our ego.

Also, looking at gloomy side of the festival, some loses their constraints stepping out the limit line! Though the myths are celebrated traditionally, the unexpected inhumanity by the mentally ill devils turns the jovial ambience Blue…! Keeping aside all joy, Centuries past, behind the joyful festival, there’s still a dubious situation for girls or women, “Are they sheltered?” The Question is that- Will perilous attitude last long? Will the sick mind turn optimistic??

It’s a huge question to answer, and yet contradictory!!

By Stuti Holkar

Life is not just about B to D

We love.we fight, we care, we laugh, we talk, we understand, we succeed, we ignore, we fail, we teach, we learn. Wow! We human beings live such an amazing life. But have you ever realised engender of our existence? Although we homo sapiens may be considered the most superior in the universe. May be because we understand, explain, analyse and interpret through emotions. But our superiority certainly depends on a number of factors be it living thing or non living thing. Can you imagine a Hospital without patients? Can uh ponder of an organisation which comprise of only CEO with no employees? Obviously not. Similarly it's really unauthentic to think of our lives without producers.Yes Plants. From our birth till death, they are the real livings which help us to survive and occupy unique positions in this universe. Well life is a not just about B to D(I.e. Birth to Death). Their comes a C in amidst of it and C represents exactly our journey — the Cycle. This journey is again incomplete actually impossible without other living creatures. Be it plants or animals. Try to imagine a world full of only homo sapiens. Oh god! how pathetic it would be but even after knowing every future consequence in this digitalised world the so called educated people are busy in becoming money monger. People have become so self centred that we have deduced the most acceptable joint family concept into nuclear family and now we are at the verge of vanishing all the forest areas so as to get a comfy bungalow with a number of gadgets.This is how we have limited ourselves but people where are your moral values gone? When in school the kids were supposed to do plantation which gave them immense pleasure and today the same kid has grown up into a gentleman but instead of planting he is deforesting. What has happened to us? This is a peak time we need to understand and fix our problems. We need to abort such activities and stop being so cruel. Otherwise the world full of only homosapiens would be worse than the vampire world. We really need to understand the real value of other living beings too be it a small microbe or a giant date palm plant because if we are able to breathe today, if we are able to have the luxurious food in various outlets, if we have tempting dwellings. The main engender beyond this is Plants. So get indulged in planting and promote planting.

Successful Plantation drive completed.