Happy Holi - Sweet Memories :)

#KhulKeKheloHoli  #ShortStories

Holi, the festival of colors and by far my favorite holiday. I like Diwali too, we get to wear new clothes and decorate the house on Diwali but I am against crackers, I don't like the noise and smoke. However Holi is completely different. It is beautiful, peaceful and one day to be yourself with the people you love.

Unfortunately, now we don't get the chance to play Holi like we played before, you see we all are grown ups and all the cousins and friends are scattered. Most of my friends are allergic to colors so the fun has gone, however, when I close my eyes and think about this festival I remember my childhood days.

I don't remember exactly how old I was back then but there is one year which I relive each time. Back then we lived in one big house with seven families in it. Our home had five kids (four girls and one boy) around ten years old (including myself) and six teenagers. As you can imagine, when one house has so many kids what would happen on Holi. My aunt, badi taiji, had warned us all for weeks to play outside as every year we spray color all over walls and ruin them. Yes, we were very scared of her but we didn't pay any heed to her warnings, well you know - bura na mano Holi hai. 

Our plans always pre-dated its date. My mother massaged our hairs for a week with coconut oil to save them from damage and made us apply mustard oil each day so that it is able to protect our skin on the D-day. Also, you see Holi always fell around our exams and our parents were exceptionally cautious for us to play with water. They didn't want us to fall sick but we always successfully sneaked out and get all wet. Well, once you are wet thoroughly, no one can stop you. So we did the same that year. We all woke up early and began our day filling water balloons. Now I think about it, it is not very polite to throw water-balloons - especially filled with hard color water but try it to explain to a ten year old. We filled all the buckets with colored water and planted them around the house to throw it on everyone who comes in today. We were all ready but our taiji caught us. She threw us out of the house but we had our fun. We played for hours and enjoyed. Tore each other's clothes and played in mud. It was epic. However when we came in all colored she hit my cousin brother. Yes, sometimes she just lost it. You ruined the floors, she yelled.

All fun lost we went to our rooms crying. However my brother, who was naughtiest and seriously

pissed for being hit decided to take revenge. He came up with a conspiracy. See we had two water tanks in our house, one on roof which was connected to all bathrooms and second underground which was used in case of emergencies. My naughty brother pulled out the trick we were planning (but never executing) for two-three years now. He gathered all the packets of hard colors from us and poured them in the main tank right before our taiji was about to take a shower. She doesn't play Holi, it ruins her skin. When she started her shower, water was all clean but during her bathe it turned colorful and she came out yelling and screaming and in all shades of pink, blue and black.

No, that's not us!

Well, we could not have laughed harder that day or beaten up as well. But it was totally worth it. Every time since then we think about Holi we only remember her colored face and every time we are not able to contain our laughter. Yes, we were very naughty. It took our family more than  a week to get the tank cleaned up, they put us to the task and we had a blast doing so.

Yeah, now when I think about it, we never celebrate Holi like we before. I wish I could be back in my childhood and spend one more Holi with all my cousins. Dance with them on all epic songs and eat my mother's famous Holi special samosas again. Sigh! 

Hope you have fun with Holi and are blessed with loving moments.

"I’m pledging to #KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”

Love and Cheers