Holi Phagwah is my new favourite holiday. The Hindu celebration that welcomes spring, and celebrates the triumph of good over evil is also called the Festival of Colours. The smearing of ash, mud and coloured dye on the body, lighting of bonfires and worship at the temple are all intrinsic parts of this festival. The Guyana version apparently includes a little more partying than the Indian version. No surprise....in Guyana they love to celebrate! This is the fourth holiday so far this calendar year!
Several of us attended the burning of the Holika service at the Hindu Temple, traditionally held the eve before Phagwah. It was very powerful to witness the rituals, the chanting and the lighting and burning of the Holi bonfire. We slipped off our shoes and sat peacefully at the back of the temple lest we disturb and listened to the chanting and hypnotic if somewhat comical music. We got a few odd glances but it was truly amazing how welcoming they were to all of us foreigners and it was very moving to experience the religious aspect of the holiday. We then went out to watch the Holi bonfire be lit and see the grains of rice be tossed on the fire to represent the old being burned away to reveal the new. Just before leaving we were offered huge plates of delicious take away food. We were invited back for further early morning temple service and to rub the ash from the fire on our heads.
The next morning it was Phagwah itself and things get going really early. Children and adults are armed with coloured water in water guns, buckets, dyes and glitter and as soon as you step out onto the street you get lamb-basted. What awesome fun for children, as when else in their short lives do they get to squirt water on anyone they like with impunity! My beloved Station St. where I live has a big Hindu community and lots of rum shops so the revellers were out partying right after morning temple services finished.
Five of us dressed up in the traditional all white attire and headed out into the fun...and wow...if you ever get a chance to attend a Phagwah festival, do it! The tradition is to smear colours on each others face and neck and hair to welcome spring, welcome good over evil, colour over dark....and it is often applied especially by the women as a blessing, and can be very beautiful if quite messy. The other aspect is almost carnival like where you have open season (especially on whiteys) and anything goes -dye in the hair, on the face, down the shirt etc. Kids and adults alike "play Phagwah". We went to all the events, including the huge event at the National stadium, and of course got absolutely completely 100% covered in colour, dye and glitter and had an absolute blast, and even had a taxi refuse to take us as we were too messy. We eventually came back showered and cleaned up best we could. We then headed back out to the evening events and my poor roommate was not even on the street for two seconds in her nice clean clothes and showered body when she got hit right in the face with a huge bucket of purple coloured water....I am still laughing about it days later. The highlight of the festival was that we all got invited onto a party truck to cruise the city at sunset. Man, what a way to have a party! You could never get away with anything even close to this in Canada. Recipe for a party: Rent a open flat bed truck and driver, put on a generator, a tower of speakers, add two coolers of booze, one of ice, blast the tunes, then invite people on as you drive around. We had no idea where we were even going but the organizer promised to drive us back So off we all went and OMG...it was so fun. We went past the temple, then to a outdoor restaurant where we all de-trucked as the host had ordered the traditional seven curries for everyone. We then all ate the most amazing food, drank top notch booze, danced and danced..and once the food was finished then the "play" aspect of the festival began again in earnest all under a spectacular full moon. Everyone from the kids, the party truck folks, to all of us, to the whole neighbourhood participated in the play, the mess and the grand theatrics and were all soaked, covered in purple, orange and pink dye and gold and blue glitter, and my face hurt from laughing so hard. At one point the host had just poured me a nice drink of top notch 15 year old rum, and I said “I‘d love some ice with this” at which point a ice bucket was tossed in the air across the table and a few cubes splashed into my drink...We laughed and I managed one nice sip of my now perfect drink when a tsunami of water from a bucket washed over me and knocked both of our drinks of the table...Damn!....But that was the point I started to engage in the tossing of a few ice cubes back at my attacker, which was a gleeful woman covered in so much glitter she appeared to have on a blue sparkly wig. When the water, ice, booze and glitter were all finally depleted it was time to get back on the truck and they drove us around the city some more as we dried off in the warm night air, everyone honking and waving "Happy Phagwa" It was now about 9pm and some folks were still shooting water guns at us as we passed...the diehard kids milking the event for every last minute they could to launch a last water assault! We even saw a donkey someone had painted red in the face! Poor beast! Eventually we were dropped back home as promised and went to our fave bar for a drink/nightcap. When we finally came back to my place we looked so hilarious that we did a nude photo shoot of our bodies all covered in the multiple layers of ink, glitter and paint! Three days later my clothes are written off, my hair is a nice blend of pink, purple and some rather unfortunate orange at the back, one breast is still quite magenta and my toes and finger nails are purple - otherwise I have scrubbed most of it off.
What will stay with me though most about this festival besides the fun and great sense of abandon was the amazing kindness of our community here. We are all strangers in this strange land and getting invited to the local’s private party was so great, the opportunity to be able to experience the event first hand with the locals, the sharing of drinks and meals, the endearing and warm inclusion we received at the temple I will never forget. Nor the many happy blessings I received as hundreds of warm hands rubbed beautiful coloured ink onto my face and skin and wished me a “Happy Phagwah”. So welcome to spring and I offer the blessing back to all of us of all colours.
