Daily Archives: March 8, 2012

Daily Life, India

Holy Holi!

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Today is Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors that celebrates the start of spring with a daylong lifting of social taboos and a rainbow of revelry.

The Times of India delivered these messages from the nation’s leaders.

President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh greeted the nation on the occasion of the festival.
“Holi is a festival of colours that heralds joy, hope and fulfilment in our lives… May this festival bring together all the colours of India’s diversity in a rainbow of unity,” Patil said in her message.
“Let the spontaneity and liveliness of this spring festival yet again affirm the togetherness of our multi-cultural nation,” the Prime Minister wished.

Tony came home Wednesday afternoon with a pink tikka between his eyes, courtesy of high school administrative assistant, Maggie. “That’s good enough for me,” he said. “I feel like I experienced Holi.”

As for me, the long list of advice for protecting our skin, hair and dignity on this day (“wear dental caps to prevent unwanted stains” and “avoid getting attacked by hooligans” were my favorite tips), made me consider hunkering down in bed with a good book for the day. However, I can’t resist an authentic encounter with the local culture. Fortunately, a couple friends got invited to a Holi party, so I tagged along!

The hostess, Sonya, owns a dog kennel not far from my neighborhood, and she welcomed both human and canine celebrants. Our contingent included Nancy, her two kids and their dog, The Dread Pirate Wesley Crusher (Wesley, for short), as well as Drew, Andi and me. When we arrived, there were just a few other guests with their dogs. After receiving some gentle smears of color and “happy holi” wishes, we tentatively dipped into the powder pots and pinched color to brush on each other.

As more people and pets arrived, the party got gradually more raucous. We discovered “tentatively” is not a common adverb on Holi.

I had brought a special guest, Flat William, who is visiting from Kansas. He got powdered, but I saved him from the water gun. (Confused? Google the Flat Stanley Project.)

Tables were laid with tasty treats, but we had been forewarned. Sure enough, platters of marijuana balls (“bhang golis”) made the rounds, along with the traditional Holi drink, “bhang,” a cannabis-milk concoction.

Soon, a pattern emerged.
(a) Allow random strangers to paint you with brightly colored powder.
(b) Get a bucket of pink water (drawn from the pool) dumped on your head OR get doused by water guns OR get tossed in the pool, effectively washing off much of your powder.
(c) Repeat a and b ad infinitum.

When I sensed a plot was under foot to pitch me in the pink pool, I grabbed my friends and made a quick escape. Our taxi pulled up to Nancy’s house, where a group of locals greeted us with purple paste and more hugs. They may or may not have been friends and family of Nancy’s housekeeper.

We left the kids at home and walked to my street, after stopping to visit Cindy and Cyril, who had spent the morning at a different Holi party.

Happy Holi!! (I was told to wear this “traditional” hat, but I’m not convinced that wasn’t a classic mislead-the-clueless-foreigner trick.)

This slideshow features other shots from the party.

Wikipedia has a solid article about Holi that explains its cultural significance.

Daily Life, India

Aravalli Biodiversity Park – a diamond in the rough

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When we first moved to New Delhi, someone mentioned a biodiversity park near our house. Tony and I wandered over to the park entrance to check it out, but the seedy-looking men hanging around the gate deterred us. Picturing a big open area with scrubby bushes and sleeping vagrants, we figured we weren’t missing much.

Last week, the subject came up again. Another neighborhood resident insisted it was a nice place to walk and escape from city smells and sounds. Saturday morning, Tony and I gave it another shot. This time, we strolled boldly past the seedy crowd (who actually look normal to us now) and found a single path that wound through real nature for about 2.5 kilometers. With the New Delhi airport a stone’s throw away, planes roared overhead, but otherwise the park proved to be a genuine oasis literally in our backyard!
Biodiversity Park Map2

According to the Biodiversity Parks website, Aravalli Biodiversity Park – or ABP, as we locals call it – comprises 692 acres on the South-Central Ridge of the Aravalli Mountain Range. Its undulating landscape resulted from years of pit mining, which left deep valleys, ridges and hillocks. Conservationists are re-introducing indigenous plants, developing a deciduous forest, and removing invasive trees introduced during the British Raj. The park features a “fernary” with Aravalli ferns (including a few threatened species), an “orchidarium” with about 70 orchid species, a butterfly garden with up to 40 species, 150 acres of grasslands and woodlands, a conservatory for native medicinal plants and a rich wetland ecosystem.

Teeming with wildlife, the park attracts birders and other nature enthusiasts. Excited about our new discovery, Tony went for a run here on Sunday and saw about 50 peacocks!

Environmental consciousness is difficult to foster in a developing country with such glaring poverty. How can you keep people from chopping down trees for cooking fires? How can you stop the killing of wild animals when people are starving? How can you justify spending thousands of dollars to plant flowers when the park backs up to a slum? So often, municipalities take action that provides a short-term solution to escalating problems. I feel optimistic that Delhi has acknowledged the long-term value of protecting and nurturing its green spaces. For Tony and me, the park has already taken our quality of life up a notch. I hope it will do the same for generations of Delhiwallas.