The religious significance of the festival, Holi, is based on the story of Prahlada‘s aunt who got burnt by the Holika fire, rather than him getting burnt. An act of violence turned back to the perpetrator. Besides this, I'd like to draw people's attention to an interesting custom in Northern India.
Traditionally Holi is not played with all the paint and other things that we use in the cities. It is played only with gulaal and water. In Mathura and Vrindavan it is played with flowers. One of the days they practice ‘Lathi Holi’, where women are given stout sticks and the men are given very tiny shields just over a feet in diameter, maybe 16 inches in diameter. The women are allowed to hit the men and all the men can do is defend themselves with those tiny shields.
If you see it being played, the women go hammer and tongs on that day against all the men that they know. I don't know who was responsible for starting this custom. In the orthodox village cultures in northern India, where this is played, a woman had to put up with a lot from the men. There are a lot of frustrations and emotionally disturbing times when she cannot say much, do even less and just swallow it and continue normal living. This can lead up to a build-up of frustration and anger. So, this is a good exercise for the women to get rid of the sense of frustration and resentment that they may be harbouring against the men. It is a psychologically healthy exercise.
One can always argue that there are better ways of doing it. Maybe, but it took some out-of-the-box thinking for the one who started this custom as a way of dealing with the frustrations of daily life that a woman has to face. All power to them. May they have a great, hearty Holi. I am sure that some of the women who are reading this would want to do the same to the men in their lives.
The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidyaf@gmail.com
