{"id":4389,"date":"2016-03-07T00:37:39","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T19:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=4389"},"modified":"2016-03-07T00:37:39","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T19:07:39","slug":"gujiyas-steel-pichkaris-tesu-phool-holi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=4389","title":{"rendered":"Gujiyas, Steel Pichkaris & Tesu Ke Phool: A Plea to Bring Back Holi Like It Used to Be"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Y<\/span>\n\n<\/div>\nou\u2019re coming for Holi, right? There\u2019s going to be rain dance and a DJ,\u201d announced my neighbour, who gets too friendly around festivals<\/span><\/a>. It made me cringe but before I could say a curt no she persisted. \u201cWe\u2019ll carry some beer.\u201d <\/span>\n\nI don\u2019t quite qualify as a Holi party pooper, but the truth is, I don\u2019t really fit in as a rain-dance enthusiast either, who runs around a manicured garden armed with some ghastly silver and gold packets of colour and bhang tumblers, dancing to \u201cBalam Pichkari\u201d. My idea of Holi is old-school Bollywood \u2013 pristine white kurtas, do chutki wale rangon ki thaali, and homemade gujiyas with kanji. No synthetic colours, just some good old gulaal. No DJwale babus, but a few neighbourhood women singing folk songs. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nGrowing up in the early \u201980s in <\/span>Varanasi<\/span><\/a>, our family had a little tradition: We\u2019d all assemble at our ancestral house not too far from the old city. My family would all make the trip back home. Call it a middle-class practice or a small-town quirk, a whole bunch of relatives would come to receive us at the railway station, all squeezed inside the family Fiat Padmini. As the station swung into view and the Kashi Vishwanath Express screeched to a halt, a silly surge of excitement would overpower me, as I\u2019d watch a group of <\/span>cousins<\/span><\/a> and uncles waiting at the platform to welcome us. Thereafter, despite the milling crowds, we\u2019d have an emotional reunion filled with warm embraces and wonder how tall I had grown in the past couple of months. <\/span>\n\nAnd with this, the weeklong Holi celebrations would commence with my <\/span>grandparents<\/span><\/a>, chachas, chachis, and cousins all in the mood for some mauj-masti. <\/span>\n\nOnce home, I\u2019d just run to the dining room where the table would be laid out with our staple breakfast of kachoris and samosas from the nearby <\/span>halwai<\/span><\/a>. As we gorged on the namkeen, dadi magically churned out piping hot puris with black chana ghughri. After the pet puja, we\u2019d all huddle together in the sprawling courtyard to make gujiyas, mathris, kanji, and laddoos. As the women of the house stuffed the gujiyas and moulded the ladoos, mama was updated with all the <\/span>gossip<\/span><\/a>; we children conspired how to steal the goodies.<\/span>\n

My father would soak tesu flowers in huge steel drums and by Holi day, we\u2019d have tonnes of natural wet colour to play with<\/blockquote>\nAfter a good afternoon nap, it was time for Holi shopping around the Dasaswamedh Ghat and Vishwanath Gali. There are few joys that match the thrill of just walking through the serpentine lanes of <\/span>Benaras<\/span><\/a>, where you lose a sense of time and self. Post Mahashivratri, shops are stocked with Shiva\u2019s favourite herbs and seeds. The elders would stop by for a glass of bhang-laced thandai, while my cousins and I would continue pestering them for a sip or two. <\/span>\n\nThe ancient city is dotted with temples, <\/span>mosques<\/span><\/a>, and Sufi shrines. The kiosks outside would be laden with riotous clusters of marigold, jasmine, rose petals, and spirals of betel leaves. My father would soak tesu flowers in huge steel drums and by Holi day, we\u2019d have tonnes of natural wet colour to play with. We children would begin cleaning our pichkaris. They were nothing like huge plastic bazookas that city kids carry on their backs these days. Our weapons of mass destruction were steel pichkaris that were removed from the storage, cleaned, and made to sparkle before Holi. I still remember, the year I turned 14, and I was gifted my own steel pichkari \u2013 it was a rite of passage. I was now old enough and would no longer have to run behind my cousins as they went around spraying water on the kids in the neighbourhood. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nWhile our water games started the day we came to Varanasi, the Holi festival officially began with Rang Pashi, three days before the full moon. I remember grandma sprinkling sandalwood powder and itr on everyone at home. On Holika Dahan, we\u2019d have a field day, scrounging around town for broken branches and twigs that we could add to the pile of wood. It would then be set on fire with an effigy of Holika at night. My cousins and I would dance around the <\/span>bonfire<\/span><\/a> \u2013 our family album is filled with dark images of us posing next to the fire. <\/span>\n\nAfter a late night of singing and dancing, we\u2019d wake up early on Rangpanchami to a yummy, and rare <\/span>breakfast<\/span><\/a> of doodh-jalebi. And in no time we\u2019d find ourselves wrestling with each other, smearing gulaal and playing catch. There were no deadlines on Holi day, we\u2019d run around in the gullies and go from one home to another with our steel pichkaris in tow. <\/span>\n\nBut the best part came after the fun and games, when all of us jumped together in a water tank with a mighty splash. This was the Varanasi version of the rain dance and I loved every bit of it. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n\nIn the \u201990s, when we moved to <\/span>Delhi<\/span><\/a>; the steel pichkaris were left behind and the fragrance of tesu disappeared. Our apartment life gave a very different colour to Holi. The week-long celebrations were reduced to a four-hour affair as sprawling aangans were replaced by narrow staircases. <\/span>\n\nAs the years went by, I outgrew Holi. Today, we order Paper Boat thandai and worry about what clever tweet to post on the occasion. But there\u2019s still one thing that has remained unchanged from the days of my Varanasi Holi \u2013 gorging on gujiyas without guilt. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My idea of Holi is old-school Bollywood \u2013 pristine white kurtas, do chutki wale rangon ki thaali, and homemade gujiyas with kanji. No synthetic colours, just some good old gulaal. No DJwale babus, but a few neighbourhood women singing folk songs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":4390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3452],"tags":[7801,7802,232,7803,1610],"class_list":["post-4389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-benaras","tag-gujiyas","tag-holi","tag-pichkaris","tag-varanasi"],"yoast_head":"\nGujiyas, Steel Pichkaris & Tesu Ke Phool: A Plea to Bring Back Holi Like It Used to Be<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My idea of Holi is old-school Bollywood \u2013 pristine white kurtas, do chutki wale rangon ki thaali, and homemade gujiyas with kanji. 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