Rang Barse...

Thanks to some favorable intersection of dates between the christian and the hindu calendar people in the IT industry had a good break from work with a long weekend. That allowed homing birds like me to head back home and celebrate one of my favoriate festivals- HOLI!!
Leaving from pune on thusday evening, I ran into almost all people i know in pune at the railway station. Sitting at Comesum (the restauraunt at the station) the tables were occupied only by IT employees. I ran into couple of school friends. It was really great catching up. I could say it was a perfect start to my hmmm vacation.

The train journey was as uneventful as it could get. with almost 70% train filled with people i knew it wasnt hard to pass time. Jumping from bogey to bogey just shouting around "oh!!! even you heading back.." and before i realised, it was time to get off.
On HOli day there wasnt much that i did. caught up with friends, smoked a couple of hukkas, killed time, wasted money and the same old stuff i always do when i am there. Had a chance to visit buddy lee cafe, and it turned out to be pretty nice, the place as well as the purpose of the visit. And then there was time to do the pooja of holi.

It was the next day that really made the trip memorable. DHULETI as it is called, the day started early with society friends ringing in, pulling me out of bed at 8 AM, and before i can say "What!" i was drenched with colored water and my face complexion gave way to pink and blue. And the day had begun. From water ballons to oil paints to GULAL (organic colour) to cowdung to dirt, u name the thing and it was used. People were literally picking up handful of mud from the road and throwing it around. With my cousins and friends adding up the numbers, we ran out of color pretty soon so had to go on another shopping spree at 9 AM. Till around noon people were celebrating in the society, until finally exhaustion took over most of them and with the long battle ahead in the bathroom, they started heading home. But i was far from done.

So i called up my friend and on his bike we set about wrecking havoc in the city. We coloured anybody whomsoever we could lay our hands on, shouting "happy holi!!". Reached mihirs place and as expected he was still in bed but we got him out and the "fair" complexion was no longer quiet visible. Kids in his society actually took him as an alien. Then it was siddhis turn and so on. finally it was nidhis house we raided and sadly for here the only color we had left was silver.. (actually we made sure that it was the only colour left). It was only when she saw the photos that she realized she had a "shining" face. close to 3 Pm i reached home and for next couple of hours scrubbed my body with all the soap i could lay my hands on. shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, soaps, washing powder everything was given a shot yet the colour refused to go. Finally i gave up saying "daag ache hai"..

Now here i am back in office after a 14 hour bus ride, more like a camel ride. hopefully wont have a long day here so that i can catch some much needed rest. Hopefully you guys too had a blast at HOLI. if not.. boo hoo you missed out.