Two years ago, I was lucky enough to be in Bangladesh for the Hindu Holi festival in March. It’s a day when people chase each other around with coloured water or powder and splash it on each other in a gleeful cacophony of colour. By the end of the day, everyone is as colourful as these boys (whose shirts started the day white). This picture was taken from a small boat while we were floating down a canal. These boys were chasing the boat, hoping to baptize us in colour.
I think at this time of year, Holi would be the perfect festival to adopt in North America. Think about it – all of that grey slushy slow that no longer looks pristine and white like it did a month ago, would be transformed into a burst of random colour. And all of those grey, black, and brown winter coats that we can’t put away just yet, because March is too unpredictable, would now be pink and purple and brilliant blue.
I don’t know about you, but this is the time of year that I most desperately start craving colour.
Postscript: It just occurred to me that the day this picture was taken followed the hardest night. Which is a rather fitting metaphor, isn’t it? After the darkness comes the dawn? After the bed bugs/wild dogs/cockroaches/diarrhea comes the day when you float down a canal with young laughing boys trying to douse you in colour? After the unholy night comes Holi day?
And today I have to remember, after winter, comes SPRING!