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Fairs & Festivals
- Holi
Holi or the festival of colors is celebrated about ten days after the
spring festival. A delightful visual, this festival combines the gaiety
of a carnival and the devotional flavour of a religious festival with
the singing of amorous songs as unbridled expressions of youth. This is
the time when both feelings and colours run riot.
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Braj seems to be the only place where one
comes across a variety of forms in which the festival of Holi is celebrated.
The following account records in brief some of the most colourful and
ecstatic forms of Holi in Braj.
Fairs & Festivals -
Holi at Phalen
The festival starts with the burning of a huge pyre of wood on the night of
the full moon in the month of March. This practice is associated with a
mythological story according to which the tyrant king (Hirnakashyap), who
could not accept his son Prahlad turning to God and faith, ordered his
sister Holika to sit on a burning pyre so, as to burn Prahlad alive.
Although Holika had been blessed with the power that the fire would not burn
her, she did get burnt to death and Prahlad instead came out unscathed.
Since then, the burning of a pyre of wood on this day symbolizes the victory
of good over evil.
The Holi at Phalen village re-enacts the Prahlad-Holika episode. The ritual
of the lighting of the pyre of wood acquires a dramatic turn when one of the
local priests walks through the fire unscathed.
Fairs & Festivals -
Holi at Barsana
The seat of Shri Radha has all the touch of romanticism. The songs sung by
people recall the pranks of Radha and Krishna and their love for each other
and the gopis. The visitors move around in large and small groups singing,
dancing and applying colours, intoxicated with the thoughts of Radha and
Krishna leela. The climax of the festivities is in the afternoon when the
gops of Nandgaon come to Barsana to play Holi with the local gopis. The
women play Holi by hitting the men hard with a 2- ½ metre long bamboo
staff. The men (gops) protect themselves with shields. The violence of the
attack is mellowed down by the singing of folk songs specially composed for
the occasion which express, in a variety of ways, how the Holi festival had
enraptured the belles of Barsana.
Fairs & Festivals -
Holi at Nandgaon
The following day the entire scene is re-enacted at Nandgaon. The gops of
Barsana are invited to play Holi with the village belles of Nandgaon. The
elaborate procedure includes carrying the flag. of the temple of Shriji. The
flag is received by the gops of Barsana with devotional singing, and is
carried on foot to Nandgaon where all attempts to capture it are foiled by
the visiting group.
The rest of the festivities at Nandgaon mark devotional singing in the
temple, folk singing on the streets followed by the women emerging in a
group to play Holi with bamboo staffs.
