Are you playing Holi ?
20 images Created 6 Jan 2011
Holi is a religious Hindu festival that celebrates the arrival of spring across northwest India. Bonfires are lit in the streets on the eve of the festivities, and as the excitement builds people throw firecrackers and dance to blaring bangra music around the fires.
The next morning people go outside armed with bags of brightly coloured paint powder known as gulal, and the streets become a battleground of technicoloured projectiles.
The dye mixed with water can be launched from water pistols or thrown as a water bomb inside a balloon. Or the powder can be ritually smeared on ones face across the forehead and around the cheeks.
It's a time when limitations of caste and social modesty are relaxed and people unite in a joyous exchange of 'colours'.
The dye stains clothes and skin alike. A scrub down at the bathing ghats afterwards is more practical than the usual cleansing rituals.
The next morning people go outside armed with bags of brightly coloured paint powder known as gulal, and the streets become a battleground of technicoloured projectiles.
The dye mixed with water can be launched from water pistols or thrown as a water bomb inside a balloon. Or the powder can be ritually smeared on ones face across the forehead and around the cheeks.
It's a time when limitations of caste and social modesty are relaxed and people unite in a joyous exchange of 'colours'.
The dye stains clothes and skin alike. A scrub down at the bathing ghats afterwards is more practical than the usual cleansing rituals.