Holi and Purim

Holi is the Indian festival of colors and marks the triumph of good over evil. It took place on March 22nd. It is celebrated widely in the North and less in the South. However, our friends here made sure we had a good time. We had 6 people staying with us - 4 other AJWS fellows and two people sent here by Shlayma's family who happened to be traveling in India. We invited everyone for the long weekend. Friday we had off from work due to it being Good Friday, which coincided with the Jewish holiday Purim. Friday night we had a Purim party; Saturday we played Holi. We were quite impressed that we were able to keep everyone fed and find places for 9 people to sleep in our 2 bedroom flat.

Purim involves reading the Megillah (the story of the hidden miracle of Queen Esther). Traditionally Purim involves dressing up in costumes.

Shlayma was Kali, the Hindi goddess of death and destruction.

Aaron didn't have a costume, so we put him in my saree and made him a hijra. The highlight of the evening was when the biryani arrived and he started doing the hijra clap in the face of a bewildered and highly amused delivery boy.

Leah was the Telugu 4 questions; Yoni was a porter.

Lauren was pollution.

Shlayma believes that Purim is all about controversy. Thus, I felt justified that my Feminazi costume was at least sort of appropriate.

Lily the Holy Cow; me the Feminazi; Shlayma as Kali

group photo

Still recovering from Purim the night before, we awoke on Holi morning and got dressed in our worst clothes. When we first stepped outside we were chased by a group of multicolored people - people who were unidentifiable due to being covered in florescent colored powder. We escaped and bought some white shirts at the 25 Rupee store in our neighborhood, then took autos to our friends house.

Everywhere we went on Holi, we saw people covered in colors standing on the street, riding around on motorbikes, hanging out of autos, and various landscapes covered in pink or red, evidence of an earlier color war.




My neighbors






At first we were playing friendly, putting powder on each others shirts and faces, but then Kiba found the bucket and began chasing people with full buckets of color powdered water. "Playing Holi" was so unbelievably fun, like the best game you played when you were a kid, a giant colored powder and colored water fight.