The Holi

While standing outside the boundary wall Tingalu shouted “Hari are you coming to play the colours or not”? Hari said haan bo going. Hari came out of his home while running, but said don’t have money to buy either the colourful gulal(colour powder), the colour concentrate or the pichkari(water gun).

Tingalu asked Hari to bring that discarded punctured cycle tyre that was hanging on the wall. On questioning, he said you just keep watching. Together they went to the end of the street. From the pocket of his half pant Tingalu took out one match box. Hari asked, afterall it is Holi, what is the use of a matchbox? Are you going to fire any crackers? It's not Diwali either. Tingalu said you budbak(stupid), just gather the dry sticks and leafs. Tingalu fired the leafs with a match stick and placed the cycle tyre on top of it. Hari felt suffocated, because of the bad fume that emitted  out of it. Tingalu burnt the tyre until it turned to be black carbon. He collected the black carbon powder in a polythene and they headed for back home. Tingalu brought a small bottle of castor oil and mixed that with the carbon black powder to make a thick paste. Tingalu said here is our colour to play the Holi and swiped his both hands on the face of Hari. It was irritating and Hari checked his face on the mirror attached to the handle of a bike that was parked on the street. Hari was aghast as he could not recognise even his own face.

To pacify his own stand Tingalu said lets go and play the colours. Hari recalled he had to retaliate for an old issue with Bunty. He instigated Tingalu and together they headed towards his home. But at the chowk  Bunty along with a couple of friends catapulted balloons filled with coloured water. Together they pushed Bunty and drenched him in the drain. Due to the onslaught of summer the drain was nearly dry. Anyhow Bunty managed to pull out himself from the drain with a patch of dirt on his buttocks. 

When Bunty stood he was able to hear two girls laughing at him. He turned and felt embarrassed to see Swati and her saheli Amrita were giggling.  Two of those girls came running with their pichkaris(water guns). Bunty lifted his both hands with a sense of surrender, but Amrita assured they did not intend to hurt him, instead wanted to help. Amrita went to the water tap and filled her plastic pichkari with water. She came back and asked Bunty to turn around. With her pichkari she gunned water on Bunty’s pants and washed the dirt. It was the onslaught of summer and the weather was dry with no moisture in the air. Bunty felt soothing when his body came in contact with water in the warm weather.

Amrita’s mother comes out of their home with a plate of sakkar pati sweets. It’s a special sweet that is made only once in the entire year and that is on the very day of Holi. She hands over two pieces of those sweets to Bunty.  With wet hands, Bunty puts the sweet in his mouth and relishes its taste.

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E. Kiran Mohan(the writer)              C/o.Dr.E.R.Rao (M.D)

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