Holi, Holi!

Going down: a family of 6 enters the elevator, all their faces & clothing splashed over with bright paint—red, yellow, blue. They’ve clearly just been flinging paint at one another & are trying to tone it down, barely suppressing giggles now that they are technically in public. I’d forgotten this was coming up & can’t remember what to say to people on Holi—that most wonderful of Spring celebrations. A moment passes.

“It’s it the Festival of Colors,” the father explains to me, struggling to sound professional & informative.

“Uh, Happy Holi,” I say, but that seems not right. Or maybe only strange coming from me. “Where are you going today?” All dressed up and…

“Oh, no where,” he says inscrutably, everyone bouncing out at the lobby. They are too happy to talk with me just now. Red, yellow & blue children hop around. “It’s a Hindu festival. We’re Indians,” and then, tragically feeling compelled to clarify that for me, “From India.”

“Yes, I-I know.”

“We’re just celebrating in the apartment,” he said. At which, by all appearances, they left the building.

Here’s a holiday I very much hope catches on in the US one day, in the way that universally legible celebrations like Halloween, Valentine’s Day, & birthday cakes with candles & singing are now celebrated all over the world. In wanting to play, too, I don’t mean to denigrate the spiritual or ethnic origins of Holi; the Festival of Colors is just a particularly glorious celebration (& asking your Hindu friends to explain the religious origins of Holi may be a little like asking your Christian friends to explain the origins of Valentine’s Day. Stories vary).

However seriously you take it, everyone running around in the spring throwing colors at one another is just a good thing all around.