Today, March 1st is officially Holi. Holi and the following day, Dhuleti, are known as the Indian Festival of Color. Playing Holi or sharing colors is a highlight of this holiday. If you can imagine a holiday that combines Thanksgiving, Carnival and Valentine's Day with the colors of Easter — but where people get colored instead of eggs — you have some idea of why this holiday is so eagerly awaited. Even though today is the actual day for Holi, it seems to be celebrated for many days. It seemed to start on Friday for most people here at the office. There was a face painting contest along with the Birthday celebration. Birthdays are also a big deal here. More so than at home. They announce everyone who had a birthday in the month and then we all had to sing Happy Birthday. And then there was cake! One is normal, one is eggless for the vegetarians and there was an additional cake for the Holi celebration. For one of the guys who celebrated his birthday the other week the tradition is to give them the 'bumps' and take turns kicking! I am so glad my birthday was before I came here!
Most people celebrated Holi on the weekend. There were many colored water fights at local parks. People showed up to work today with colored hands as the paint does not exactly come off very easily. Coming into the office today I saw a few guys on bicycles completely covered in paint! I was a little worried about coming to work today, but so far no one has accosted me with color. Actually it is very quite here as a lot of people have taken today and even the week off for holidays. Happy Holi
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