Agencies/Lucknow
Revellers have begun painting the town red across India at the start of riotous celebrations to mark the spring festival of Holi, including in a town usually associated with grief as a so-called “city of widows.”
Holi, also known as the festival of colours, is celebrated across India this week as revellers flowerbomb each other with powdered paint with festivities reaching a crescendo tomorrow which is a public holiday.
But some of the most moving celebrations have been in Vrindavan in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, home to around 2,000 widows who have been shunned by their families after the deaths of their husbands.
While the idea of widows taking part in any kind of celebration has been traditionally frowned upon, the widows of Vrindavan have been joined by hundreds of other women since they began marking Holi three years ago.
“The best part about the festival is that we get to change and wear different clothes than those that we wear almost everyday,” Manu Ghosh said after taking part in a Vrindavan paint fight on Tuesday.
“We can dance, sing and mess around together. The food, particularly the sweets during Holi, also remind me of the days when my husband was still alive,” said the 85-year-old who was widowed 21 years ago.
There were similarly joyous scenes in Mumbai yesterday where disabled youngsters sprayed and smeared each other with a rainbow of colours.
In New Delhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan greeted people on Holi and also International Women’s Day which falls on March 8.
“Woman, as a mother, is a life force and nature has so ordained us that creation takes place only from an empowered being. Women have been contributing to the uplift of society in the role of a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother,” she said.
People go shopping as they start celebrating Holi, in Allahabad yesterday.
