Essay on The Holi Festival:
The Holi is an all India festival. It is celebrated in the entire length and breadth of the country with zeal and great pomp and show. It is the festival of colours.
The festival usually comes off at the beginning of spring. People in those days are generally idle and the festival brings in life and charm to their dull life. Flowers bloom here and there giving off their sweet fragrance. Nature looks gay and too much beautiful. The season is of joy and mirth. Man too gives himself up to merry-making.
The festival also reminds us of the victory of Lord Krishna over a demon who troubled the God-loving masses and disturbed them when they solemnized religious rituals.
People celebrate the Holi with great joy. They sprinkle coloured water at one another. Young children buy tin, brass or plastic syringes (Pichkaries) and enjoy discharging coloured water from the Pichkaries at passers-by or at their friends. Sometimes peevish persons pick up quarrels with those who sprinkle coloured water on them and drown all the joy and mirth of the festival.
Young children with blackened faces and clothes besmeared with various colours roam about in gangs shouting, jumping and dancing. They are then on the lookout for the target of their joke. They apply colour to his face and sprinkle a good deal of coloured water on him. They spare none.
The festival lasts for eight days. During these days farces, theatrical performances, songs, dances, in short, every form of enjoyment and joy is freely indulged into.
The Holi is, indeed, the season of merry-making. But it is a pity that certain people throw filth and rubbish on one another instead of sprinkling coloured water. Such unwholesome occurrences turn the sacred festival into a source of annoyance and hatred. Sometimes very ugly events are seen.
Just when in India we celebrate and enjoy the Holi festival, in England the May-day festival is observed with great enthusiasm, mirth and joy.
