Holy Holi! I had the great fortune to celebrate Holi Festival in Dharamsala, India this year. Holi is the beautiful and exciting holiday to welcome spring by flinging brightly colored powders and rubbing them all over the faces of your friends, family and complete strangers! Holi celebrations are the craziest in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai, but Holi Festival in Dharamsala was still quite the celebration!
Luckily, everyone was more than happy to have their picture taken! I wrapped a few plastic baggies over my camera and packed some wet wipes and crossed my fingers that I could document this amazing day without sacrificing my camera!
Things kicked off around 10:00, and at first it was just the occasional person walking by with a streak of color on their forehead. Then it was a few crazy guys tearing by on motorcycles with their whole faces powdered.
Eventually, a local guy pointed down a road and nodded knowingly – “The big party will happen down there,” he told me. I headed down to a small temple and sure enough, there was quite the celebration happening outside! People had large feed bags of powder and were dumping it on each other and literally smearing it over each others faces.
The event culminated in a crazy battle-of-the-sexes human tower competition with the aim of knocking a clay vase down from a rope that was suspended across the street. It was a bit like a pinata, and I was happy to find a safe spot on balcony to enjoy the scene. The contestants were challenged with buckets of water and large quantities of powder to distract them from their quest.
Eventually, the boys won and the powder fight dissolved into a huge water fight. Overall, it seemed that things stayed relatively safe, but I know Holi has a reputation of getting out of hand.
Patrick Huibregtse says
March 27, 2013 at 11:20 amSuch amazing captures! Wonderful wonderful wonderful.
Kelly says
March 28, 2013 at 5:13 amXOXOX. Just wish you were here with me!
Len says
March 28, 2013 at 4:42 amHopefully you will get it washed out of your hair again! (I had some trouble)
I didn’t know about Holi when I was travelling in India and just sort of walked into it. Definitely not funny when you are at the beginning of 2 months of travelling with just one set of clothes, and just arrived in a city desperately looking for a hotel! Also, all the shops were closed for the day and we didn’t have anything to eat. The memory still makes me cringe, I’m glad you had a better go at it and got some great pics out of it!
Kelly says
March 28, 2013 at 5:14 amHey Len! I also was worried about the hair color, but I was quick to get home and shower and it came out! Definitely a relief given the reports I’ve heard of skin reactions and the like. Sorry to hear you didn’t have the best Holi experience.
Laura Miller says
November 14, 2015 at 8:38 pmHi!
I’m actually looking at celebrating Holi next year in Dharamsala. I’ve heard that in a lot of places that women, especially white women, have a lot of trouble and experience a lot of harassment during the festival. Which is pretty crappy. Did you have any of these problems when you were over there? I’d love for Dharmasala to be an awesome place to celebrate Holi without the increased risk of getting groped.
Kelly Egan - A Side of Sweet says
November 14, 2015 at 8:58 pmHi Laura! Good question. I was totally by myself for this and I had this on my mind as well. Because I wanted to document the experience and had my nice camera with me, I was definitely more of an observer than a participant. I had many men try to put Holi powder on me and I told all of them no. If they tried again I would use my voice strongly and say no again. This was enough to make them back off, even if it was with a bit of jeering (like ‘stupid american, it’s all in fun’ stuff like that, nothing hateful). I wanted to make sure I didn’t put myself in an unsafe situation. I definitely think you need to be careful if you are by yourself, but mostly of being groped inappropriately. I never felt in true danger, just like my personal space was being invaded. Hope that helps!