Celebrated on the last full moon of winter, Holi is a spring festival of colors. Rajasthan boasts some of India's biggest celebrations. The festival can last many days and "Holi" is the day that involves throwing colored powder and/or water on each other. It was wonderful to see whole villages and small cities enjoying the day. Our car was colored, too, along the way. And some small villages set rocks across the highway, forcing cars to stop and pay a small bribe to enter and then again to exit (20 cents). We were glad we made an early start because celebrations can get raucous later in the day when greater amounts of specially home-brewed Holi drinks have been consumed.
In most of the villages we passed, it was young men/boys who were the principal celebrators. There were also groups of girls enjoying the fun, too. Nicely dressed ladies in saris were not assaulted. If you're out on the streets, however, you're fair game.
Also see last year's post/celebration in which we took part.
