Holi-The Festival of Colours!!!

Holi-a colourful Hindu festival which is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early march every year. It is an ancient  religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities.It is primarily observed in India,Nepal and other regions of the world with significant populations of majority Hindus or people of Indian origin.The festival has, in recent times, spread in parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic and colours.

 According to mythology, the festival is celebrates the killing Holika, the sister of Hrinyakashyapu. The festival also holds significance with respect to end of winter season and the onset of summer season.There is no comprehensive data to know the origins of the festival. However, Holi as we see it today is believed to have originated in Bengal, where the day was celebrated as Gaudiya Vaishnava festival. However, there are several mythological stories behind the origins of the festival. The most popular one is related to the killing of Holika. Mythology states that when Prahlad disobeyed the orders of Hrinyakashyapu and kept praying for Lord Vishnu, Hrinyakashyapu took the help of her sister, Holika, to kill him. Holika took Prahlad in her lap and sat in a bonfire as she had immunity against fire. However, to everyone’s amazement, Holika was burnt alive while Prahlad was unaffected. Thus, Holika Dahan is celebrated a day before Holi. 

Spiritual Holi:

The festival is also believed to be a celebration of Radha’s undying love for Lord Krishna. Still another mythological tale states that when Lord Shiva destroyed Kamadeva, he later resurrected him for the sake of his wife Rati. However, Kamadeva was brought to life only as a mental image. The festival is believed to celebrate that event.

Different people!!!Different cultures!!!Different colours!!!

The festival is celebrated in different ways around the country, the most famous one being in Mathura. Here, the festival lasts for 16 days, and is primarily played with flowers. In large parts of India, the festival is celebrated with a lot of colors, water balloons and water guns. Parties are often organized across the length and breadth of the country where people dance to music and greet each other with colors. Sweets are an important part of the festival.

One festival...Different names!!!

• Holika Dahan
• Hola Mohalla
• Holika
• Kumauni koli
• Midsummer
• Songkran (Thai festival)

In India,Holi is mainly celebrated in Gujarat,Uttar Pradesh,Kerala,Karnataka,Madya pradesh,rajasthan,Odisha,Uttarakhand,Bihar,Assam,Goa,Bengal etc

Holi and its local celebration names!!!

Hindi-Holi

punjabi-phagwah

Bhojpuri-Phaguva

Oriya-Dolajatra

Bengali-Basantotsav or swing festival

Gujarati-Dhuleti

Holi in Other countries:

Nepal:

In Nepal,Holi celebrated in Hills is remarkably different from Madhesh, even the festival is celebrated on two different days. Holi is celebrated in the month of Falgun and is also called as the "Fagu/Phaguwa" and is celebrated on the full moon day (in hills) and the day after (in Madhesh) in the month of February. The word "Fagu/Phaguwa" (Devanagari:फागु/फगुआ) represents the month of Falgun and the day is called the "Fagu Poornima" (Devanagari:फागु पुर्णीमा) which means (full moon day in the Falgun).

In Nepal Holi is regarded as one of the greatest festivals as important as Dashain.

Holi in Nepal

Indian diaspora:

Over the years, Holi has become an important festival in many regions wherever Indian diaspora were either taken as indentured labours during colonial era.Holi is a national holiday in suriname and it is celebrated grantly in Trinidad and tobago,Guyana,Fiji,Mauritius etc

Holi-Important social concerns!!!
 An alleged environmental issue related to the celebration of Holi is the traditional Holika bonfire, which is believed to contribute to deforestation. Activists estimate Holika causes 30,000 bonfires each burning approximately 100 kilograms of wood every year.This represents less than 0.0001% of 350 million tons of wood India consumes every year, as one of the traditional fuels for cooking and other uses. Methods to further reduce wood consumption during Holika have been proposed, including the replacement of wood with waste material or lighting of a single fire per community, rather than multiple smaller fires. However, the idea of lighting waste material antagonises large sections of a certain community, who take it as an attack to their cultures and traditions citing several examples of similar festivities elsewhere.

Whats our Role??

As we are today's youngsters...we are living our life very fast using modern things without knowing their effects..As concerned for Holi..we should avoid synthetic colour powders and should use traditional colouring materials such as mehendi,beetroot,Indian berries,Dried tea leaves,species of grapes,fruits of amla etc

Because,Our future generations also want to celebrate Holi in this world happily!!!
So,we should pave the way for it by giving nature some compromise!!!
Holi-The festival of colours!!
The spirituality of Hinduism!!!
The colour of Love!!!

Lets celebrate Holi in a safer way for Developing Eco-friendly India!!!

Happy holi!!!