Holi Ho!

Today was madness in Kathmandu. Holi is a festival of
craziness, and
of all the colors of the rainbow. It is a celebration
of the first
full moon of spring, and the coming of the cooling
monsoon. Water is
being sprayed everywhere, and water balloons coming
from rooftops,
colored with dye, and everybody throwing color powder
and smearing
each other with color. It is particuarly risky for
white people to
go outside, as we make particularly good targets (we
color easier).
This morning i was not able to walk safely to my
friend's house in
Dholpu, a 7 minute walk. I got pegged from rooftops,
chased through
the streets by a guy with a bucket full of orange
water, and yellow
powder smeared on my face. And that was before the
fun started!

I am one to put myself in the way of danger from time
to time, and so
i did today. Yesterday, i bought a whole outfit of
white clothes for
450 rupees, and i went out today at the mercy of
Krishna, and before
5 minutes, i was a mess, covered in red dye and soaked
with water.
The whole town was painted, and water was flying from
every
direction. We walked to the heart of Thamel, the
tourist center of
Kathmandu, and it was a mad scene. Multi-colored
people were packed
in the street, boxes of powder being sold at every
corner, red yellow
orange green silver gold black white blue, people
covered head to
toe, water battles going between rooftops and us down
on the street
soaked and colorful. There were battles between the
ground and the
rooftops, and the best shots were wildly applauded by
everyone,
sometimes a roofdweller getting it in the back of the
head, or a
bucketful of water dumped from three stories up.
Everytime a clean
person tried to sneak by, a roar rose from the crowd,
and the poor
victim was surrounded and attacked by a rainbow of
hue. There was a
purple bearded madman jumping up and down, and
spraying his color
everywhere like a maniacal smurf. Motorbike riders
became quite
colorful, and cars that tried to squeeze through the
crowd with an
unlocked door or tailgate were in trouble. The door
would be opened,
and a crowd would descend upon the unfortunate
passenger with powder
and water and color paste. In a word, it was
madness!! And some
real good fun!

As far as i can tell, America doesn't know about
festivals, how to
have real good fun! For one day, everyone in Nepal
cuts loose and
sprays all of their brothers and sisters, and no one
is allowed to
get mad at each other. There were some minor
altercations that i
witnessed, but the instigator would get a bucket
dumped over their
head, and somebody would yell "Holi Ho!!!" and the
bad feelings
would dissipate quickly, and the fun would start
again. It was the
most fun i've had in one day, and i wish that more
people in our
country knew how to do it.

At the end of the day, i was covered in red and green
and purple, my
clothes dyed, and also my feet and my face and my hair
and hands. I
think in a week or so, i will be my original color
again, 4 showers
later. We'll see.


Kolorful in Kathmandu,

mark.