Holi

Holi has officially become my favorite Indian holiday. Although it’s much bigger up North than it is in the South, we had a fantastic time celebrating with our friends Adam and Vidya at their place in Bangalore.

Holi is supposed to celebrate the coming summer and the spirit of forgiveness. What better way to forgive people than to pelt them with colored powder and douse them in water? And that’s precisely what we did!

We showed up in the morning, sparkling clean (I chose all white so that the colors would look really cool), and didn’t even make it up to Vidya’s family’s apartment before we were colored. We took a minute to put our stuff down and immediately ran downstairs to commence the festivities.

We had a few ringleaders, mainly Xanthine, who couldn’t keep herself away from the water, Vidya, who couldn’t keep herself from sabotaging people with pans of colored water, and Chetan, who couldn’t keep himself from grabbing people and holding them down for a good team sneak attack!

Throughout the festival we managed to stop for a few photos, so you can get the full effect of our color. Afterwards we rinsed off in water, enjoyed some watermelon juice and samosas, and then used detergent to scrub off the color (ouch!). 

A few of us remained colored for days- I had some nice pink in my hair plus speckled feet, Mari had some green in her hair, and Giselle had a fantastically pink ear! We finished the day off with an INR 1500 (USD 30) all you can eat and drink sushi fest.

The weekend was filled with some other luxuries too—Genny and I stayed with Giselle’s cousin, Pascal, who has a beautiful apartment and hired a car for us for the weekend, bowling, seafood risotto, awesomely bizarre music, and a tour of the famed Infosys campus.

All in all a fantabulous weekend!