Phagu Poornima
Festival of Colour

This festival is celebrated as a victory of the good over evil and an occasion for establishing friendship, burying the animosity, jealousy, hatred, etc among each other in the past, and being involved in merrymaking, irrespective of social hierarchy, writes Ram Sharan Sedhai

Phagu Poornima or Holi, one of the national festivals, is marked by an overwhelming use of different colours, principally the vermilion for eight straight days, beginning from the eighth day of the waxing moon, culminating on the full moon day or Poornima. Phagu in the local language means playing with colours.

This festival is celebrated as a victory of the good over the evil and an occasion for establishing friendship, burying the animosity, jealousy, hatred etc among each other in the past, and being involved in merrymaking, irrespective of social hierarchy.

Even the coy mistresses, who otherwise remain confined to their homes and do not mix up with unknown young boys, dare to look and laugh at youths on this day, prompting the boys approach them and besmear them with red powder or throw vermilion on them. And to put red powder to strangers on this day is not considered as an offence. Holi generally occurs at the beginning of March or sometimes in late February. This year the festival takes place on Thursday, March 28, according to the Nepalese lunar calendar.

Recognising it as a national festival, the government gives a public holiday on the full moon day in the capital and the rest of the hilly districts, while it gives public holiday in the Terai districts the following day, as people in the Terai mainly celebrate the festival the next day. Holi actually begins eight days prior to the full moon day, with the installation of Chir - meaning cloth in the Nepali language - a bamboo pole decorated with the strips of colourful cloth with three umbrella-like tiers. Such Chirs are erected in public at places amid joy and show. In Kathmandu, Chir is planted at Hanumandhoka Durbar Square with throwing the sacred vermilion powder on the pole and the onlookers gathered around the area.

From this day on playing with the colours, Phagu, is considered permissible and especially children and adolescents begin throwing vermilion among each other including the passers-by.

However, for the past few years, the festival of making friendship, has taken a bad turn due to unscrupulous besmearing of colours on and pelting balloons filled with either dirty water or harmful substance at the pedestrians even before months. This has resulted in the unofficial closure of schools and colleges especially in the Kathmandu Valley well ahead of the coming of the festival as the young girls are the targets.

Customarily, the festival is an occasion when the young boys and girls who otherwise could not come into contact despite their longing, meet on this day and involve in merrymaking, but the said mode of approaching girls or boys is unacceptable. There are instances of losing eyesight or being injured due to such unscrupulous pelting of balloons. The indiscriminate throwing of colours has not only affected people who are on the way to offices or to attend to some important business, but it has also contributed to tarnish the significance and original meaning of the sacred merrymaking occasion.

In the western part of Nepal, the day is taken as a licence to proposing a girl. Boys of marriageable age give some money to their dream girls on this day, which in their dialect is called Sai. If a boy gives a Sai to a girl on this day she is booked and the boy can marry her at his convenience.

Young boys and girls in the western hilly region of the kingdom indulge themselves in a Dohori, a repartee in which they exchange their views through chorus song after they are tired of playing with colours. A large number of people surround them and encourage both sides to win the competition. This is expected to bring them closer and further strengthen ties of friendship.

The mode of observing the festival differs from place to place. People in the urban areas make use of water-filled balloons, commonly known as Lolas, and other different types of colour powders including vermilion while people in the Terai prefer using various colours to water-filled balloons. Similarly, the locals in the remote hilly regions simply play with those colours they prepare from the powder of local plants and flowers where vermilion is not available. Tharus, the indigenous inhabitants of the Terai, celebrate Phagu as their main festival. All the villagers together go for fishing a day before Phagu Poornima and burn the Chir in the evening. The next day they invite all their married daughters and their husbands and children and eat lavish food and drink. Fish is a compulsory food item among the Tharu community during this festival.

Under the intoxication of alcohol, they gather at the place of their god and begin singing, dancing and playing trumpets, which they call Hori, a folk dance. They pray to god to bestow them with power so that they could vanquish their adversaries. They begin the singing and dancing from the home of the landlord of their village and later, go to individual houses in their vicinity. And they organise a common party with the money thus raised.

They also believe that burning the Chir, the symbol of Holika, a demoness who attempted to kill Lord Krishna, would bring happiness in their life throughout the year. Besides, they also use the occasion to settle their annual accounts on this day. Generally, they make verbal agreements and in some cases written to send their children to others house as bonded labourers for a year, to work as servants, cow herders and ploughmen.

The religious interpretation of Holi is linked to Lord Krishna who is known for establishing courtship with 1,600 Gopinis or milkmaids of Brindaban in India. Padma Purane Krishna Bachanam, a religious scripture says that those who erect a Chir on the eighth day of the bright fortnight of the month of Phagun and keep on worshipping it till Poornima with scented vermilion and play with the red powder remembering Lord Krishna, he will be pleased and grant happiness.

Legends have it that all the evil deeds committed or that took place during the year are burnt down with the burning of the Chir on Poornima, the last day of the festival.

According to one interpretation of the event, Holi is the marking of victory of the good over the evil or wicked. It is believed that Lord Krishna, who came to this earth in Dwapar, one of the four eras mentioned in the Hindu religious texts, was fed infant Krishna with poisonous breast of a demon called Putana at the behest of Krishna’s maternal uncle Kansa. While feeding breast to Krishna the fiendish woman died and the locals of Brindaban cremated the demon on bright full moon night of Phagun, Phagu Poornima. And they celebrated the day with great rejoice. And continued to this day.

There is another interpretation of the festival that matches with the way the occasion is marked as Holi.

In ancient time a demon named King Hiranyakashyap made efforts to kill his own son Pralhad as he became an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna in his boyhood. As the demon’s previous attempts to finish Pralhad proved in vain, he ordered his sister Holika who was immune to fire, to take the child and jump into a furnace prepared to destroy Pralhad.

But to his horror, the fire consumed Holika and Pralhad was unscathed, sitting among the embers as Lord Krishna’s blessings were with the child. And the believers in the god celebrated the occasion as the end of Holika. And it is believed that the festival is named after the demon to celebrate the end of the fiend. Hence, it is also called Holi.

Advent of new season, Fagu

Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. It is a festival that breathes an atmosphere of social merriment, writes Sanchita Regmi Joshy

The tender green leaves on trees, the blossomed flowers in the gardens and the sweet calls of the Cuckoo mark the advent of a new season that is Spring (vasant). Enriching the freshness is the festival of Fagu Poornima with a splurge of colors and an aura of romance all around. Fagu or Holi, is an extremely popular festival observed throughout the country.

It is especially marked by unmixed gaiety and frolics and is common to all sections of the people. This festival is very ancient. Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. It is a festival that breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a typically colourful sight.

Young and old alike are drenched with colors (red, green, yellow, blue, black and silver). On Holi, people are suddenly caught unawares with colors being poured from atop the houses, bursting balloons, or long pistons squirting coloured water. People in small groups are seen singing, dancing and throwing colours on each other.

Fagu Poornima has long traditional links with several legends. According to one popular legend, the word Holi is derived from the demoness, Holika. She was the sister of Hiranyakashyap, a demon king, who having defeated the Gods proclaimed his own supremacy over everyone else in the Universe. Enraged by his son Prahlad’s ardent devotion to Lord Vishnu, Hiranyakashyap decides to punish him.

He takes the help of his sister, Holika, who is immune to any damage from fire.

Holika carries Prahlad into the fire but a divine intervention destroys her and saves Prahlad from getting burned. Thus Fagu is celebrated to mark the burning of the evil Holika. It is a celebration of the triumph of good over evil.

Holi is celebrated throughout Nepal to some extent, but it is more predominant in the terai region. Preparations for the festival begin a week before. Powdered colors and spraying pistons are bought. In earlier days the colors were extracted from a flower that blossoms only during this festival. And the pistons were made of bamboo sticks. But over the years colors are made artificially and pistons made of different materials are available in various designs. Usually people burn the Holika tree on the eve of Fagu. Folklore and dances are performed around the fire to welcome the new season especially amongst the terai community. On the morning of Holi, people have fun with colored water. Men, women and children all participate in this merry making. In the evening, youngsters play with dry colors and seek elders’ blessings. Special dishes for the occasion is a typical fare. People visit each other’s houses and savor the delicious eats, be it Dahi wada or a preparation of raw Jackfruit or the traditional Mal pua (a dessert made of maida, milk, sugar and dry fruits). Fagu is as important a festival as Dashain and Deepawali. Even though some people do not get involved, the spirit of communal harmony is very high. People indulge in merry-making and playing with colored waters is a common sight.

Energy & confidence of our age

By Nitya Nanda Timsina

As the sun rises little over Thankot, most kids in Kathmandu punch off their alarm clocks, have their mothers pack their luncheon, brush their teeth and rush off to school…and learn ABC…Awashyak Singh does a little more exercise -cuddles his battery-operated toy airplane trying to fly it before leaving for his school.

Most kids as they grow up are hooked to the music played by Brian Adams and Britney Spears growing into more western or rock and Kathmandu is no exception. Troubled and misguided kids are not to mention all over the world. Reports in the United States said that kids longed to blow up schools and shoot everyone. Awasyak Singh looked forward to a future that didn’t involve guns and bombs. At the school, he giggled and frowned before the cameramen who flew to interview him from India and said,"I want to fly airplane."

His friend Shashank, said, "I have seen him driving car and now he wants to fly airplane."

A four-grader boy attending Dr Grams Holmes School at Kalimpong, India Awashyak startled everyone as he sat at the wheels of a car literally driving it at an instantaneous speed just like any other Taxi driver in Kathmandu. Even as he sits before a computer blowing enemy warplanes out of the sky, he appears to be very meditative-playing the game with a purpose to win. Future seems truly unlimited to children who enjoy success at home.

"Ama, I am about to fly airplane, I can no longer wait to graduate," he told his mother one evening at a dinner table. His mother groped for an answer but did not find one. "We provide ideal environment for children to learn here," claims his hostel Superintendent Mamata Mahara who has understood the pride her student took in his expertise.

Most kids who spoke here aren’t interested in this stuff of flying airplane, they want their every moment in the sun but this little kid taking bold step for the future at a school in the outskirts of Kathmandu has a purpose in life.

Even as he comes home from his school, he goes straight onto his room and flies his toy plane. "Sure, I would prefer him to work on his interest of flying," said Captain Anil Shrestha of Buddha Air who has been a sole inspiration behind Awashyak’s choice of a career. Though there is always something unknowable about some kids’ motives, Awashyak’s unusual interest has surprised everyone including his teacher. He is a bigger mystery among other students. Drawing energy and confidence in him his friend, Shashank has too begun to dream of the unexpected.

Shy and a little sad, he has set himself record at five driving a car all by himself. Today, he has set a long-term goal in life to be a pilot. What drives a kid at so tender an age to go into a pilot?

"I want to become a pilot," He told his parents one day even before he attained his fourth birthday. His mother Parmila Singh put a hand to her heart. She had always believed that her kid would get into medicines or engineering. But he surprised her with his iron will to fly above the luminous clouds.

Remote-controlled gazettes are everywhere in his room, making his room look like a toy fair. He duly sits on the mat and turns on the wheel of one of the battery-operated airplane crash-landing it at the next end of the room. The experiment was simple but well calculated. He started dreaming of flying airplanes.

"When he was a little kid of five years, he quickly learned driving. Today He has stopped sounding like a baby and has been insisting to become a pilot," said his mother.

In a go-ahead school at Dr Grams Holmes in Kalimpong, India, Awashyak, a three-grader student had already started adjusting the windshield of his car.

The wonder and the horror of our age was altogether different-we have never had chance to guess what toys looked like, let alone driving a car. Our rooms were filled with hardly any books or gazettes. They looked like ranch house with hardly anything for a time pass. When we were pushed through to a school, we could hardly gape through pages looking for ABC…and that sent us into a lullaby so easily. We could do well in climbing on to a peach tree and did little household chores beyond learning ABC…and after which we could pack off for school. Our pack lunch consisted of a roasted corn and our teachers were looming six-foot tall angry-looking men scaring us to death.

I could vividly remember myself drenching my half-pant at a primary school when one of my teachers scolded loudly for an incomplete homework. Yet, we pulled through our exams whose questions were thrown like rubber bullets. The energy and confidence of today’s generation has under a major shift. Today’s kids grow so fast. Some like Awashayak started driving car and beyond at five even before their parents could ride on a bicycle.

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