Friday is going to be a special day, not because it is a weekend, but because it’s this year’s Fagu Purnima, or Holi or festival of colors. To watch people covered by various colors, and to do that ourselves gives us happiness and enjoyment. Co-blogger Vishu wrote a small piece earlier urging to play it sensibly … I am doing the same. Celebrating something should be confined within ourselves or to only those who want to participate. Throwing water-filled balloons over girls/women or even men is an inhuman act and should be avoided.
Somwhere in web, I found this description of Fagu Purnima.
Fagu Purnima is celebrated on the day after the full moon in early March every year. Originally a festival to celebrate good harvests and fertility of the land, Fagu Purnima is now a symbolic commemoration of a legend from Hindu Mythology. The story centers on an arrogant king who resents his son Prahlad worshipping Lord Vishnu. He attempts to kill his son but fails each time. Finally, the king’s sister Holika who is said to be immune to burning sits with the boy in a huge fire. However, the prince Prahlad emerges unscathed, while his aunt burns to death.
Anyway, I find the festival most enjoyable. But I never liked the idea of dragging uninterested people in the celebration. From a week earlier, I saw children roaming around the street and looking from the windows for any girl whom they can target the filled-balloons or lola. While I saw an advertisement by Delhi Police on a newspaper warning against such practice, Nepal’s police has been quiet as if nothing is happening.
On Wednesday, three 8 to 10 years old boys hit a middle-aged woman with water-filled-plastic bags and the woman had no choice but to run away. Three army men were on the site, they just smiled as most of the passengers on board of the bus in which I was a passenger did. How sad? People are doing nothing – but letting their children to learn this inhuman act.
When I was a student of class ten, somebody threw a lola inside our classroom targeting the girls and I remember all of us hurried out the classroom not caring the teacher, got the boy and beat his hard. He probably never again thought of lola then after. It was not a good retaliation but an effective one nonetheless.
Four years ago, three days before the festival, a Nursery kid came running to me in my relatives house to tell us that he hit a woman on her back. He was all proud, and sadly nobody scolded or convinced him that was not good act.
Let’s play Fagu Purnima but without spoiling other’s happiness and let’s consider telling our kids not to repeat such acts in future Fagu Purnimas. And, the security force, please rise, if we can see bunches of kids in the sides of roads waiting for buses with lolas in their hands, why can’t you?
