Bonfires of Color

Some aspect of the Indian gene pool must contain a tendency towards pyromania. It’s the simplest explanation I can think of for the fact that every national holiday or festival I attended during my (now suspended) time in India involved burning or blowing up something or the other. Behold.

Diwali: fireworks and bonfires.
New Year’s Eve: ditto.
Lohri: check.
Holi (This one had me fooled — I just expected color. What did we get? You got it.): more bonfires.

I was in Udaipur for this last one, and had been advised to remain indoors because it was “very dangerous.” Apparently there’s something about throwing colored powder on people, many of whom are strangers, that often triggers another inexplicable trait specific to groups of Indian men: public misconduct on occasions of public festivity. In a typically Indian fashion, I couldn’t get many other details out of my friends and relatives as to what made going out on Holi dangerous. All I could gather from snippets and sweeping generalizations was that people get drunk or otherwise enter some altered state of mind and become prone to misconduct and deviant behavior. This was enough to convince me to take the day off from visiting sights and wandering through the streets. Given some of the stories I heard from others who either hadn’t been so advised, I had made the right decision.

Nevertheless, we did venture out on the night of Holi. (The festival is celebrated over two days, the second of which is apparently the one designated not for the faint of heart.) Wandering through the streets of the old city, we came upon an — you guessed it — enormous bonfire and party of sorts in the square at the bottom of the steps of the Jagdish Temple . I recorded bits of it for your viewing pleasure. Look out for a cameo by KA.