What you need to know about Holi, India’s most colorful tradition
A rainbow haze swirls across India, where raucous laughter rings out as friends and strangers shower each other with fistfuls of pigmented powder. Holi is a Hindu tradition, an annual celebration of spring. In 2024, crimson, emerald, indigo and saffron clouds will hover over the country on March 25 for one of the most vibrant, joyful and colorful festivals.
‘Playing Holi’, as the Indians say, is an age-old tradition that has spread far beyond the borders of India. Here’s what you need to know about the festival.
The party starts at sunset.
Holi (pronounced ‘holy’), also known as the ‘festival of colours’, begins on the evening of the full moon during the Hindu calendar month of Phalguna, which falls around February or March. It starts with lighting bonfires. People gather around the flames to sing, dance and pray for an evening ritual called Holika Dahan, which reenacts the demise of a Hindu mythical demon, Holika. All kinds of things are thrown into the fire, such as wood, leaves and food, in a symbolic purification of evil and the triumph of good.
From Delhi, Archie Singhal, 24, visits her family in Gujarat the day before Holi, when the fire is lit in the evening. The next morning, she prepares for the bursts of powder, called gulal, by applying oil to her body so that the colors don’t stick to her skin. She puts on old clothes that she likes to throw away.
Why the colours?
Holi’s roots lie in Hindu mythology. The god Krishna, cursed by a blue-skinned demon, complained to his mother, asking why his love interest Radha is honest when he is not. His mother, Yashoda, playfully suggests that he paint Radha’s face in whatever colors he wants. So Krishna puts color on her to make them look alike.
Holi is partly a celebration of the love between Krishna and Radha that looks beyond differences. Nowadays, some of the gulal used during Holi is synthetic. But the colors traditionally come from natural ingredients, such as dried flowers, turmeric, dried leaves, grapes, berries, beetroot and tea.
“There is an air of freedom,” said Ms. Singhal, adding that she does not hesitate to throw colors on her younger brother, parents, aunts, uncles and neighbors.
Everyone participates.
The centuries-old Hindu festival eschews the religious, social, caste and political divisions that underlie India’s often sectarian society. Hindu or not, anyone can get splashed with brightly colored dust, or even eggs and beer.
Some participate in worship called puja, where prayers are offered to the gods. For others, Holi is a celebration of community. The festival involves everyone, including innocent passers-by.
“People forget their misunderstandings or enmities on this occasion and become friends again,” says Ratikanta Singh, 63, who sometimes writes about Holi in Assam, northeastern India.
There’s a party.
When not busy with Gulal, friends, families and neighbors partake in a buffet of traditional dishes and drinks. They include gujiya, dumpling-like fried sweets filled with dried fruits and nuts; dahi vada, fried lentil fritters served with yogurt; and kanji, a traditional drink made by fermenting carrots in water and spices.
Some celebrate Holi with thandai, a light green mixture of milk, rose petals, cardamom, almonds, fennel seeds and other ingredients. For thousands of years, the drink was sometimes laced with bhang, or crushed marijuana leaves, adding to the atmosphere of revelry.
Holi has ancient roots.
Holi has been documented in Hindu texts for centuries. The tradition is observed by people young and old, especially in Northern India and Nepal, where the mythology behind the festival originates.
Holi also marks the harvesting of crops with the arrival of spring in India, where more than half the population lives in rural areas.
Traditions vary across India.
Holi celebrations are as diverse as the Indian subcontinent. They are particularly wild in northern India, considered the birthplace of the Hindu god Krishna, where celebrations can last more than a week.
In Mathura, a northern city where Krishna is said to have been born, people recreate a Hindu myth in which Krishna visits Radha to romance her, and her cowherd friends, taking offense at his advances, drive him away with sticks.
In the eastern state of Odisha, people hold a day-long festival called Dola Purnima. Large processions of people carrying lavishly decorated carriages with idols of Hindu gods on their shoulders form a large part of the festivities there. The processions are full of drum beats, songs, colorful powder and flower petals being thrown into the air.
In southern India, where Holi is not as widely celebrated, many temples perform religious rituals. In the Kudumbi tribal community, in the southwest, temples cut areca palms and transport their trunks to the shrine in a ritual symbolizing the victory of good over evil.
It’s not just in India.
Holi is celebrated all over the world, wherever the Indian diaspora has gone. More than 32 million Indians and people of Indian descent live abroad, most of them in the United States, where the Indian government estimates its population is 4.4 million. It is also widely enjoyed in countries as diverse as Fiji, Mauritius, South Africa, Great Britain and other parts of Europe.
Holi is known as Phagwah in the Indian communities of the Caribbean, including India Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
The festival has also been used by the Indian government to project soft power and reshape its image as part of its “Incredible India‘tourism campaign.
About Holi, “the world is a global village,” said Shubham Sachdeva, 29, from an eastern Delhi suburb, adding that his friends in the United States celebrated Holi with their housemates, whether they were Indian or not. “All this brings the world closer together.”