The peppy festival of India - HOLI

Dipped in the hues of love, the vibrant colors, the colorful sky and a festival of oneness, HOLI has been and will always be a favorite festival for people from all squares. From the lanes of Vrindavan and Mathura to the whole country, with the different colors, love has been spread.

The story behind  Holi festival

Interestingly, different cities of India, believe and celebrate Holi in a different style. With the traditional and devotional ways of celebrating holi, the various myths are really interesting. The evening before the celebrating day, a bonfire is lit which is symbolical of the destruction of the demoness Holika by Lord Vishnu. People call this custom Holika Dehan. People dance around the bonfire singing and reciting prayers. Basically, the festival is celebrated as a sign of victory of good over evil.

Different styles of celebrating the same festival

In Mathura, people believe that celebrating holi was started by Lord Krishna and due to this belief, all the temples are decorated and people madly dip in the colours of holi. In Barsana, a town near Mathura, holi is celebrated as lath maaro where ladies play the role of gopikas and use sticks to scare men. In West Bengal’s Shantiniketan, the students of Viswa Bharati University celebrate in a different way where they organize various cultural programs and plays depicting holi. Jaipur celebrates elephant festival where huge elephants are decorated and taken out on procession.

The edible specialties

Like every other festival of India, holi too has its own special eating items. Starting from the delicious traditional sweet Gujia, people eat variety of sweets. Gujia is famous in north India as people go crazy to taste this sweet which is a special holi sweet. How can we forget bhang? Bhang is one of the favorites of people who enjoy drinking and forgetting all sorrows. The intoxicating bhang can’t be separated from the festival.

The warmth of oneness

[caption id="attachment_217" align="alignnone" width="960"] "Festivals in Goa"[/caption] In North India, celebrating holi is a very noisy affair where people involve themselves in celebrating with Bollywood songs and dances, throwing colors and water balloons on each other, whereas, in South India, holi is very peaceful. People wear clean clothes, go to the temple and worship god. In both the cases, Holi is a medium to forget enmities and move on with love. It is a festival of colors where different colors come together and celebrate togetherness. Unity in diversity can be best observed during this festival of colors - Holi