Holi Remembered – memories of my youth
HINDUSTAN TIMES/GETTY IMAGES
As I think about holiday traditions I love, I see the traditions of my youth and the ones I adopted in adulthood in the United States. I grew to love Christmas in America as a way for our family to be part of the country that I have called home for forty years now. Holi however has a special place in my heart. It reminds me of my youth. It reminds of me of where I am from.
Announcing the onset of spring, Holi is steeped in Hindu mythology. It celebrates the victory of good over evil. A day when all Indian societal heirarchies are to be forgotten.
Celebrations started weeks in advance with my mother making plans for Gujhiyas, a most delectable crescent shaped pastry. The chiraunji, a nutty seed had to be sifted through. Only the freshest, nuttiest flavor would do. The khoa had to be prepared which required hours of boiling and stirring milk until it was reduced to a caramelized crumbly consistency.
“One can’t be careless about this”, my mother would say, her face flushed, wiping away beads of perspiration with the end of her sari pallu. “You need to keep constant watch and keep stirring! It is hard work”, she would exclaim.
The pastry shell had to be just the right thickness, so that when you bit into the gujjhiya, it didn’t take long to sink into that most perfect combination of flavors and consistency of the khoa, sugar, coconut and chiraunji. Heaven indeed!
The Gujhiyas were then stored in a stainless steel canister, rationed out, for there had to be enough for when the guests arrived.
The day itself came with drama and intrigue. We picked out the whitest of our white clothes. Ones that we could afford to discard. My hair had to be braided or pulled tightly back.
My parents being elders in the community, not by age, but by the position that my father held in the hierarchy of the workplace, were expected to stay at home and greet visitors as they came to pay their respects.
They brought abeer, a dry colored powder to be smeared on faces, celebrating this festival of new beginnings. My father’s face streaked with layers of various colors as the day advanced, until you could only see the white of his eyes.
My mother or one of us kids would be summoned to come in with gujhiyas and water, each visitor exclaiming how delicious my mother’s gujhiyas were.
I don’t quite remember playing Holi as a child, but as a teenage girl, I remember the anticipation. Holi was the one day where the boys had permission to physically touch us. The one day I would not be under the watchful eye of my father. Freedom!
Holi gave the boys a pretext to smear the girls faces with abeer and squirt colored water on us, drenching us from head to foot. Pranks abounded with water filled balloons hurled at us. Ouch!
As I stepped out of our home and walked through the streets with my friends, passing strangers greeted us with shouts of “Holi hai! (It is Holi)!”.
We hoped to see the boys we fancied. I am sure the boys felt the same way. And if we did spot them amongst the throngs of people, we were suddenly overcome with shyness.
If our affections were returned, the object of our infatuation would approach us and most gently put a little abeer on our already flushed cheeks. And that was it. Our hearts aflutter, we moved on, dreaming of the romantic encounters of the year to come.
Back home, drenched and exhausted, my mother would order us into the bathroom.
Buckets of water were needed to wash off the color in our hair. Often, we didn’t get the color out of our nails and around our ears for days. My mother always had hot kachauris, a puffy fried bread with a savory spiced filling of lentils. We ate ravenously. And then there was the star of the show — the gujhiya!
The gujhiya we had salivated over and patiently waited for. We finally had a taste of the most delicious Gujhiya in the world!
Tired and well fed we fell into our beds. Those afternoon naps of deep slumber were heavenly. The best I can remember. And we dreamt of the next Holi to come.
