Holi at Stanford

An invitation to go to an event at Stanford, whose proceeds will be used to fund education in India was quite irresistible. Now here's my little secret - I am not really a big celebrator of Holi. Back in Mumbai, my definition of Holi was pretty much to not get wet during those 2 days while making trips to the grocery shop or to the nearby temple. Over the years, I had become somewhat adept at spotting those small wet explosion marks on the ground and immediately scouring the high rise buildings for some clown with a ready balloon missile. Oh these missiles quite often met their targets - unsuspecting meek creatures like the postman or a slow old man on his walk or little kids or me. Even in the odd years that I participated, it was always about filling water balloons and practicing casting projectiles at friends and dodging theirs. We never really played around much with colours other than to mark each others' faces with 'war paint'. In fact some of these paints were those Y-U-C-K-Y oil paints and the powders were rough arsenic mixtures that sometimes wouldn't come off for days. Coming over to the other end of the planet, my experience was somewhat different...

Lazy as usual, I reached Sandhills fields a bit late and my friends were already in the fray and their cellphones were totally unresponsive. So as I stepped out of my car I felt a little odd noticing that everyone else had company. Some with hands around one another - the usuals ("hey I'm in the US of A - I can do whatever I want" types). But along my shy walk over to the registration desk, I noticed another guy looking somewhat just like me, wearing a white cisco t-shirt, also alone. At first I felt a bit sympathetic to him, but was I to be proven otherwise or what!

For now let's call him Mr.Confident (I never found out his real name anyways). Both of us entered the grounds at about the same time. What lay before us was a sight worth remembering - an enormous playground filled with a thousand colourful faces. Handful of colour powders were distributed at a desk. Not fully sure what I would be doing with them, I just followed Mr.Confident over to that desk. Along the way as hard as I tried, I couldn't help but get distracted by some uber-gorgeous angels gleefully bobbing along with colours and shouting "Happy Holi". I think I may have even tried mumbling something incomprehensible back with little effect. Now following Mr.Confident, I too filled up my fists with colour powder. His next step was of course much harder to follow.. Bobbing over toward us was a really beautiful looking young lady. I couldn't help notice that her immaculate cheeks were relatively void of colour, perhaps no decent person had the heart to taint them. Mr. Confident stopped her dead in her tracks, and as I watched in dumbstruck silence, without warning, grunting "Happy Holi", he brought both his colour powder laden manly palms down her gentle soft cheeks, instantly transforming a thing of heavenly beauty into something virtually unrecognizable. "Oh you are so dead, dude! ", I thought to myself. But to my utter shock, her sweetness lifted her palms and coloured Mr.Confident's grizzly face back with a chirping "Happy Holi!", before bobbing away. If anyone had noticed, my jaw would have probably been a few inches lower. "Wow", I thought, not only did he survive, he even got rewarded for it. Then I watched as he repeatedly achieved the same success with others. "It's all about confidence", I had decided to myself, but the shyness in my DNA wouldn't let me attempt it initially.

Then the most amazing thing happened, without warning, another nice looking lady (a few inches taller than me), caught me off guard and doused my hair, face and specs mercilessly with green colour powder. For someone who was used to handling rough coarse powders for Holi, this felt like talcum! From where I got my confidence, I have no idea, but I actually found myself returning the favor to her, albeit with trembling hands, before she walked away. Knowing that I was coloured and probably unrecognizable, with all niceties locked away in some corner of my heart, I then launched on my own simpler parade, catching not the unsuspecting ones but the rather expecting ones, class B, C not class A ;) and smearing them with yellow, pink and green. This went on for quite sometime, and was super great fun.. I was wearing a mask, unrecognizable, free! Of course, soon later, to much dismay I heard my name being called out.. It was one of my undergrad friends. Sheepishly I asked them, "am I really recognizable?".. Well once you are with friends its a different story all together. But I shall always remember the inspiring Mr.Confident as the man who taught me Holi!

"Happy Holi"