Happy Holi!      

          It's been years since I last celebrated Holi. For those of you who are not familiar with holi or phagwah, I should note that it's a Hindu festival/religious holiday that celebrates the beginning of Spring. The gloom of winter dissipates as Holi promises bright summer days, and lush nature revival.    

         As a Hindu/religious festival, Holi has several legends associated with it. The most prominent is the legend of the demon King Hiranyakashyap, who demanded everyone in his kingdom to worship him. But his son, Prahlada, became a devotee of Lord Vishnu.

         For this, Hiranyakashyap wanted his son to be killed. So he asked his sister, Holika, to enter a blazing fire with Prahlada in her lap (as Holika had a boon which made her immune to fire). The story goes that Prahlada was saved by Lord Vishnu for his extreme devotion, whereas the evil sister of the demon god was burnt to ashes, for the boon only worked when she entered the fire alone. Since that time, people light a bonfire, called Holika, on the eve of the Holi festival, which symbolizes the victory of good over evil, and also the triumph of devotion to God. The celebration continues with people spraying colored water and applying colored powder on each other's faces and bodies to symbolize the beginning of Spring. That's why the festival is so colorful!     

      Since I couldn't take part in Holi this year, I decided to do a rangoli. A rangoli is a decorative design made of bright colors on living room or courtyard floors during Hindu festivals. Since I'm not particularly fond of drawing, I got a stencil and traced the contours of what would be my rangoli on to black cardboard. Thereafter, I selected my colors, got my tools out and began to carefully fill in colors to different parts of the rangoli.

            Five hours or so into the process, this is what it looked like...

                      Compared to the stencil, here was the final result...

          After a few shots, I decided to add some candles for added effect. And so... this is what I got...

Other photos can be found here.

Once again, HAPPY HOLI. Please do take some time to celebrate this year:)

Religious story excerpts taken from here.