It’s that time of the year again, when you can be a legit asshole to people in the name of culture. It always gets us excited, almost as much as Diwali, the other festival where you get to be a legitimate asshole to the environment in the name of culture.
It wasn’t always like this. Trust me, I do remember a time when hearing the words Holi haiiii didnt immediately instill a sense of panic within. But then gradually, over the years, people have turned holi into an excuse to treat human beings as sh*t – quite literally at times by flinging more shit at them.
You know who throws shit at other members of their own species? Monkeys! (There you go Mr. Satyapal Singh, undeniable evidence that Darwin was right. Might I also point out the almost poetic irony of your name? No? Okay). And we claim to be eons ahead of them from an evolutionary perspective. I mean, we just sent a car to Mars and are contemplating more gender identities than we have fingers to count them on, aren’t we? So what makes us regress into such crude, primal, uncouth behavior annually for the festival of colours?
To understand that, we need to understand what scares us about it. Frankly, for me, it’s the jump-scare like tactics used to put colour on unsuspecting people. Once, a friend tried to put paint colour (the more permanent kind that we’re all familiar with) on me, and in a hurry to ambush me, he forgot to put enough water into the mix. It resulted in sizeable granules of dry powder being vigorously rubbed on my face resulting in quite a few painful cuts that burned for the rest of the day under the coalescing fervor of additional layers of colour and the unrelenting sun.
But this is puny. Insignificant compared to what women have to go through during these few days of the year. Out of all festivals celebrated in this country, holi single handedly has the reputation of being a favorite of molesters and perverts of all kinds. But what else did you expect out of a place that barely knows the idea of consent.
I just recently read a report about semen filled balloons being flung at women. And the first thought that crossed my mind was, “This is exactly what separates us from apes. They would never do this.” I repeat – we’ve evolved for a long, long time to figure out how to make balloons, their projectile motion, their durability to be able to execute such an act. You have to realise, that a group of people got together, decided to pool their contributions into a receptacle, and hoist it up high at an opportune moment towards a suitable target. People who did this should be nominated for the next Nobel prize in physics, with peace thrown in for good measure. And also be told that this is how they’re going to spend the rest of their lives – subject to a relentless insecure circlejerk to convince themselves of their morality.
In the name of the festival of colours, women have been groped, pinched, assaulted, and even physically hurt for years. So if you see a woman being scared to participate, be a good human being and don’t go on and call her an anti-national libtard, will you?
I personally feel that this behavior is rooted in a desire to dominate, to subjugate, that lies at the core of this country’s attitude towards its women in general. With added intoxication into the mix, Holi just lets people get away with it. Coz bura na mano holi hai, right?
I’ve grown up in a small town – a place where you didn’t have to think twice to go out and play holi with friends and complete strangers alike. Yes, there were no-go zones there too, but you didn’t have to hole up in your house in the fear of unrelenting holi enthusiasts. Let’s try and bring that feeling back into the festival, one where people aren’t choosing between sleeping in and leaving the city for these few days. We’re stronger than a few regressive Bollywood song lyrics, aren’t we?
Arnab Mukherjee 