Isa (Questioner is from Netherlands): It’s my first time in India and there are a lot of new things, lot of impressions and now that Holi is coming I really want to know what is it about? What does it mean?
Acharya Prashant Ji: What have you seen so far regarding Holi?
Questioner: It’s just that colours and the powders and everyone is dancing and singing, playing music
Acharya Ji : So, Holi is a festival celebrated over a full day, and the preceding night. It’s a very prominent Indian festival. Obviously with the spread of the Indian diaspora, it is now celebrated almost across the world. Of course in the Indian subcontinent, plus in the US, UK, Canada, Australia. Also, where there are pre-existing communities of Indian origin – places like Fiji, Trinidad, Tobago, Surinam, Mauritius, Maldives, Indonesia. So, that’s what the festival of colors is all about. People smear each other with colors and it could be powder colors or liquid color which is thrown on people.
You will experience all of that. You are here on that day. I don’t think anybody is going to spare you. There is a lot of wild festivity. People go around beating drums with music and nobody is spared – men, women, young, kids, elderly. They say, “Bura na mano holi hai!” and it is the day of colors and everybody has to participate and everybody must look very, very colored. Not only one colour – green, yellow, red, blue…you name it. And you will see all these things going on and you also do not differentiate between friends and foes on these days. Even enemies are supposed to meet and hug each other and smear each others’ faces with a bit of color and forget all the enmity and the bitterness.
