Holi is over! We once again had a special, wonderful, incredibly colourful celebration for this colour festival!
I already told you that Apra was in a kind of Holi fever the whole time. She was playing every single day with colours, asking different people to give her colour and even convincing some staff members to go out with her and buy coloured powder for her! She had a blast!
On the last day of Holi, the 6th March this year, we had our biggest celebration, not only with powder but also with coloured water, water pistols and lots of different colours! Yashendu and the Ashram staff had spent half of the night before boiling flowers to make coloured water and so the water was nicely warm as well. Apra decided that she would rather stick to dry colours and played along on the side, without getting wet.
Our guests however got right into the colours along with us! They enjoyed just as much as we did and just like last year, ended up being coloured at different body parts. After the big celebration, we were all just tired and exhausted – still yesterday, everyone was hanging around, just enjoying a day with less to no movement and of course the tasty sweets and snacks of a festive time!
Yesterday, a German woman came by at the Ashram to inquire about retreats in the next months. She had spent Holi in Vrindavan – but had not left the hotel room on the main day, the sixth March, after some bad experiences on the fifth. She had gone out of the hotel and in the big crowd, she was not only coloured but also groped and harassed. In a crowd like this, crazy in Holi madness, unfortunately such things happen – and a woman experiencing that cannot do much about it except than staying in. It’s a huge pity and a big shame!
That is how travel agencies and online travel forums already started telling women to stay inside on the main day or to only celebrate with a small group of friends, the guesthouse family or another closed party, not out on the road.
We are happy that at our Ashram, we can give people from abroad the opportunity to experience the whole craziness of Holi, and especially in Vrindavan, in a safe environment. Yes, we all get crazy, we run one behind the other and we all are like children looking forward to colouring the other one – but however crazy it gets, we all know to treat the other one with respect. We are our staff, our friends, our guests, our kids and our family. It is quite a crowd but even while rubbing colour powder on another person’s neck, we all know that we are doing this because we all want to have fun!
And it stays fun for everybody who takes part! Now, after the celebration, we have wonderful memories of being like children again and not caring about colour on our bodies or hair! It is the best time of the year – and we love sharing this experience with friends from all over the world!
We are looking forward to celebrating with you next year!
Here you can see pictures of this year’s Holi celebration
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