Holi, this year....
I woke up to the loud sound of a dhol playing somewhere. As always, I had left the window open to let in whatever little light that could sift into my room. But strains of music and light-hearted yells drifted in, on the other hand.
I lay back in bed, with my pink blanket pulled up over my head, trying to drown out the various sounds that reminded me of home, of parents, of being surrounded by people and enjoying every minute of a festival. The sounds only tended to compound the loneliness. It wasn’t disappointment or misery. It was a feeling that I cannot describe. Being left alone, with nothing to do throughout the day, except read. Having just books for company. Hearing someone’s voice over the phone, without having anyone near you. It was a feeling of laziness and sloth, combined with loneliness and anxiety.
I tried to go back to sleep, but it eluded me. My mind innocently went back to the numerous Holis I celebrated as a child. And how I took every moment for granted. Helping mum make gujias the evening before Holi would always be something all of us would participate in. Dad would knead and roll out the dough (because he could make perfect circles!). My brother and I would fight over spooning the sweet-gujia-mixture (khoya and sugar and a lot of nuts and coconut rashes) onto the dough, putting it into the old metallic mould (that belonged to my great-grandmother), wiping away the excess dough from the sides, and popping open the mould to find perfectly-shaped gujias with a bulge in the middle. Then mum would deep-fry them and turn them into sweet savouries, which would later be distributed to the servants, taken to the children’s home, and also handed out to guests of all shapes and sizes on a heaped platter.
I would wake up the next morning, with a queasy feeling in my tummy. Put on some old clothes (that wouldn’t be needed again) and smear myself with generous layers of Vaseline and body lotion. Dad would literally pour hair oil over my head (so the colour wouldn’t set into my scalp and spoil my Bengali hair!). Once, I had disobeyed my parents and stepped out to play Holi without any protection of cream or oil. The results, to say the least, were disastrous. And it took me numerous hot baths over the course of four days to make my skin squeaky clean again. Needless to say, I’ve learnt my lesson ever since.
Then it would be time to sit back and wait for people to come calling, which they inevitably would. Step out as soon as friends arrived. And there would be no looking back after it. Water hoses, pipes, drums, barrels, buckets. Water sprinklers would be too routine for us!
How I missed all that today. Hearing everyone on the roads, the dhols and the screams of ‘Holi Hai’, the typical songs playing on loudspeakers that seemed to have miraculously come up everywhere (with Amitabh’s baritone voice booming out ‘Holi ke din sab khil jate hain, rangon se rang mil jaate hain…) – everything seemed familiar, yet so distant and far away. I stayed in bed throughout the day. And felt listless. And read and read. And ate chocolates. And probably got fat.
When I finally stepped out for a breath of fresh air in the evening, I saw the asphalt of the roads coated with colour and gulal. Immediately I met with yet-another-familiar sight of Punjabi mundas clad in too-tight t-shirts, with bulging biceps and pointy leather shoes, driving around at speeds of 80 km/hr around the narrow lanes of the marketplace, in their flashy cars with alloy wheels and tinted windows. Jumping out and gawking at girls passing by, guzzling beer in their leather seats that none of them paid a single penny to have upholstered (their daddies did all of it for them!), and behaving in their typically brash, Dilliwala way.
As I walked around the streets and by-lanes of my locality, I heard the laughter drift out from the houses. I saw a family settled around in their drawing room, an old man (presumably the grandfather), some women and children. All of them with their daily evening cup of chai. Watching television (probably some soppy soap opera) and loudly discussing a cricket match. I walked pass like a ghost, unseen and unnoticed, catching bits and parts of their dialogues.
People indulged in raucous revelry throughout the day, had bhang and gujias, drenched themselves and their friends in colour and gaiety and boisterousness that characterises this festival. They went home celebrating, painted with colours and splotches on every part of the skin that was thoughtlessly left uncovered. Then they bathed and came out, clean and glistening, to meet neighbours and relatives, exchange sweets and drinks, and celebrate the spirit of the festival with each other.
I walked on alone. Peeping here, looking there. Kicking an empty bottle of Coke in the middle of the lane. Playing with a pack of stray dogs (they are good companions!). I don’t have a family here. Neither am I in the carefree mode of those college students who surround the chai-wala thela just around the corner near my house. I seem to be caught in the middle. Neither here, nor there. Somewhere in between that is no man’s (or woman’s?) land.
I lay back in bed, with my pink blanket pulled up over my head, trying to drown out the various sounds that reminded me of home, of parents, of being surrounded by people and enjoying every minute of a festival. The sounds only tended to compound the loneliness. It wasn’t disappointment or misery. It was a feeling that I cannot describe. Being left alone, with nothing to do throughout the day, except read. Having just books for company. Hearing someone’s voice over the phone, without having anyone near you. It was a feeling of laziness and sloth, combined with loneliness and anxiety.
I tried to go back to sleep, but it eluded me. My mind innocently went back to the numerous Holis I celebrated as a child. And how I took every moment for granted. Helping mum make gujias the evening before Holi would always be something all of us would participate in. Dad would knead and roll out the dough (because he could make perfect circles!). My brother and I would fight over spooning the sweet-gujia-mixture (khoya and sugar and a lot of nuts and coconut rashes) onto the dough, putting it into the old metallic mould (that belonged to my great-grandmother), wiping away the excess dough from the sides, and popping open the mould to find perfectly-shaped gujias with a bulge in the middle. Then mum would deep-fry them and turn them into sweet savouries, which would later be distributed to the servants, taken to the children’s home, and also handed out to guests of all shapes and sizes on a heaped platter.
I would wake up the next morning, with a queasy feeling in my tummy. Put on some old clothes (that wouldn’t be needed again) and smear myself with generous layers of Vaseline and body lotion. Dad would literally pour hair oil over my head (so the colour wouldn’t set into my scalp and spoil my Bengali hair!). Once, I had disobeyed my parents and stepped out to play Holi without any protection of cream or oil. The results, to say the least, were disastrous. And it took me numerous hot baths over the course of four days to make my skin squeaky clean again. Needless to say, I’ve learnt my lesson ever since.
Then it would be time to sit back and wait for people to come calling, which they inevitably would. Step out as soon as friends arrived. And there would be no looking back after it. Water hoses, pipes, drums, barrels, buckets. Water sprinklers would be too routine for us!
How I missed all that today. Hearing everyone on the roads, the dhols and the screams of ‘Holi Hai’, the typical songs playing on loudspeakers that seemed to have miraculously come up everywhere (with Amitabh’s baritone voice booming out ‘Holi ke din sab khil jate hain, rangon se rang mil jaate hain…) – everything seemed familiar, yet so distant and far away. I stayed in bed throughout the day. And felt listless. And read and read. And ate chocolates. And probably got fat.
When I finally stepped out for a breath of fresh air in the evening, I saw the asphalt of the roads coated with colour and gulal. Immediately I met with yet-another-familiar sight of Punjabi mundas clad in too-tight t-shirts, with bulging biceps and pointy leather shoes, driving around at speeds of 80 km/hr around the narrow lanes of the marketplace, in their flashy cars with alloy wheels and tinted windows. Jumping out and gawking at girls passing by, guzzling beer in their leather seats that none of them paid a single penny to have upholstered (their daddies did all of it for them!), and behaving in their typically brash, Dilliwala way.
As I walked around the streets and by-lanes of my locality, I heard the laughter drift out from the houses. I saw a family settled around in their drawing room, an old man (presumably the grandfather), some women and children. All of them with their daily evening cup of chai. Watching television (probably some soppy soap opera) and loudly discussing a cricket match. I walked pass like a ghost, unseen and unnoticed, catching bits and parts of their dialogues.
People indulged in raucous revelry throughout the day, had bhang and gujias, drenched themselves and their friends in colour and gaiety and boisterousness that characterises this festival. They went home celebrating, painted with colours and splotches on every part of the skin that was thoughtlessly left uncovered. Then they bathed and came out, clean and glistening, to meet neighbours and relatives, exchange sweets and drinks, and celebrate the spirit of the festival with each other.
I walked on alone. Peeping here, looking there. Kicking an empty bottle of Coke in the middle of the lane. Playing with a pack of stray dogs (they are good companions!). I don’t have a family here. Neither am I in the carefree mode of those college students who surround the chai-wala thela just around the corner near my house. I seem to be caught in the middle. Neither here, nor there. Somewhere in between that is no man’s (or woman’s?) land.
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