Holi is one of my favorite festival and along with Diwali, I enjoy Holi a lot. Actually you can say that I enjoy Holi more than Diwali. Right from childhood, I used to be excited to play Holi. Dad used to take me & Bhumi down to play with the other kids in the society when we were Kids and he too used to enjoy with us. We also used to go to meet relatives and play Holi with them too. During my college days, we at our society used to play Holi like mad and we also had the Panditji at the Shani Temple next to our building who provided us with good quality Bhaang to be mixed with Thandai. Cricket after Holi was the best thing to happen to us as everyone in the building used to come down to play and everyone was at their enthusiastic best to play.
When I was flying to US, my friends back home were wondering how much I’ll miss the festivals there. I used to tell them that there is a very strong Indian community at Clemson and I’ll enjoy every festival there just like in India. I celebrated 2 Ganeshotsavs, 2 Diwalis & 2 Holis there and trust me the Holi which I celebrated in 2010 was the best one I every celebrated.
It was the morning of 28th February 2010 – A lazy Sunday at Clemson. Generally, we used to wake up only after 12 on Sundays but that day Jaat Bhai & Nihar Bhai came barging at our doors at 10am and Saurabh woke up 1st. They started coloring him & shouted loudly happy holi. Saurabh first came to wake me & told me, “Chal bey bahar aa. Holi Khelna hain…” I replied, “Aata hu… Thoda der sonede…” But he was adamant. I woke up, got out & we had our very special Jaat Bhai & Nihar Bhai throwing colors all around. By then even Ninad Bhai joined in and a few juniors in Sourav, Aniket (Wave), Iyer, Tushar too joined in. Sushant and Nisarg (my roomies along with Saurabh) came out and we all left with whatever colors we had to go color the entire of University Place (our apartment complex) red, pink, blue, green etc. We went around every Indian house in the complex to wake them up & literally drag everyone out to play holi. Nihar Bhai kept on repeating, “Rathod aur Gandhi, tumhara CISA house hain and isiliye hum tumhare ghar pehle aae hain taaki tum ab sabko ikkatha kar sako…” Me and Nisarg took it as a challenge and within 20-25 minutes, every Indian from University Place was out playing Holi. We literally banged on peoples doors, barged into their houses and dragged them out to play holi. Gauri and Chandini were the first girls to come out and play. We had to force them a lot and they tried using their girly Nakhras to avoid us, but we got them out. We even requested Gauri’s mom who was in Clemson at that time to join us but she refused. After that all the girls from University Place (UP) came out. We were something above 25 people playing holi in the lawns of UP now. We were scared that the property management will impose heavy fine on us the other day but the emotion of celebrating the festival overruled the fear. By this time, the news of us playing holi reached many other apartment complexes and they wanted us to get the entire gang to all the complexes.
We decided that we should go ahead and we went to Sajit, Ronak, Satvik and Nimish’s apartment and we spoilt their apartment and lawns too. From there we went ahead to University Apartments where we got out the likes of Sharmad, Akash, Varun, Bhides etc. to come out and play holi. Parrag said in between to me that Sudha too wants to play Holi and let’s go to Lemans. I abused him but we still went ahead to Lemans. All these complexes were within 5 minutes’ walk from each other. By the time we reached Lemans, Nisarg and Himanshu got Garima and Sunayan out of their houses. Some of the enthusiasts were already out in Lemans in our anticipation and ready to start playing. We obliged and started throwing colors all around. Here too we started dragging people out and played holi with them. Sudha was keen on playing holi and I asked Parrag to get her out. She came out and she too started enjoying with us. There was a family too at Lemans and they too started playing with us. Someone suddenly poured in hot water from somewhere. We were shocked as we were not used to celebrating Holi with hot water. Just then we realized that Jaat Bhai & Nihar Bhai managed hot water from the washer room. We all enjoyed this sudden surprise. Well everything on that day was a surprise for all of us so this hot water treatment was just an addition to it.
We all played holi, sang rang barse, danced like crazy for almost 2-3 hours. We went back home by 2 in afternoon forgetting completely that most of us had an assignment due the coming week. People who used to crib about their projects forgot that they were in USA. Such was the fun of the festival. After coming back home, we had a fight for the bathroom and after showering, we cooked some nice Indian delicacies. Garima too cooked something special for us. Gauri’s mom too cooked Puran Polis for us which we enjoyed.
This was the second time I played Holi in USA. The first one was a planned one but this one kicked every other Holi’s ass. This was the best Holi I have ever played in my life. The main thing here was the element of surprise and spontaneity amongst everyone. Not everyday do you get a knock on your door where people drag you out to play a festival that you enjoy to the core. This is something special. I sincerely thank Jaat Bhai & Nihar Bhai for starting this. As I get news, that this tradition has continued in Clemson and people are still dragging everyone out. I just checked the pics on FB which clearly show that the tradition started last year has continued and I just hope, it doesn’t die there. HOLI 2010 is one Holi which I won’t forget for my life… Missing all you guys…