Holi Festival #onlyharish

Holi is considered as one of the most revered and celebrated festivals of India and it is celebrated in almost every part of the country. It is also sometimes called as the “festival of love” as on this day people get to unite together forgetting all resentments and all types of bad feeling towards each other. The great Indian festival lasts for a day and a night, which starts in the evening of Purnima or the Full Moon Day in the month of Falgun. It is celebrated with the name Holika Dahan or Choti Holi on first evening of the festival and the following day is called Holi. In different parts of the country it is known with different names.

Holi, Hindu spring festival celebrated throughout North India on the full-moon day of Phalguna (February–March). Participants throw coloured water and powders on one another, and, on this one day only, license is given for the usual rankings of caste, gender, status, and age to be reversed. In the streets the celebrations are often marked by ribald language and behaviour, but at its conclusion, when everyone bathes, dons clean white clothes, and visits friends, teachers, and relatives, the ordered patterns of society are reasserted and renewed. Holi begins on Sunday, March 28, 2021

The vibrancy of colors is something that brings in a lot of positivity in our lives and Holi being the festival of colours is actually a day worth rejoicing. Holi is a famous Hindu festival that is celebrated in every part of India with utmost joy and enthusiasm. The ritual starts by lighting up the bonfire one day before the day of Holi and this process symbolizes the triumph of good over the bad. On the day of Holi people play with colours with their friends and families and in evening they show love and respect to their close ones with Abeer.

Holi is particularly enjoyed by worshippers of the god Krishna. Its general frivolity is considered to be in imitation of Krishna’s play with the gopis (wives and daughters of cowherds). In Vraja (modern Gokul), rituals of reversal culminate in a battle in which the women of the natal village of Radha, Krishna’s eternally devoted lover, pummel the men of Krishna’s village with staves; the men defend themselves with shields. In the Dolayatra (“Swing Festival”), images of the gods are placed on decorated platforms and are swung to the accompaniment of cycles of songs sung only in the spring season. In many locales, celebrants kindle an early morning bonfire that represents the burning of the demoness Holika (or Holi), who was enlisted by her brother, Hiranyakashipu, in his attempt to kill his son Prahlada because of the latter’s unshakable devotion to Vishnu. The burning of Holika prompts worshippers to remember how Vishnu (in the form of a lion-man, Narasimha) attacked and killed Hiranyakashipu, vindicating both Prahlada and Vishnu.