Rang de basanti!

It’s a splash of colour at the annual Holi Mahotsav at Darling Harbour

BY SHAILENDRA BEDARKAR

When someone asked me the way to Tumbalong Park to catch the Holi Mela, I said, look for coloured faces, people in clothes splashed with colour, kids running around covered in coloured powder, some loud music….

Holi, as a festival of colour, is meant to welcome the colours of the spring season, but really, people celebrate it by letting their hair down and rejoicing (presumably because the long hard winter is over and the days have opened up).

Ironically, for us the ‘Aust’racised Indians, it marks the start of the winter solstice. Shorter days and the start of the cold……Well, who cares, we Indians only need the slightest reason to dance and celebrate and eat good food!

So we take ourselves to Tumbalong Park each year to let our hair down at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s annual Holi Mahotsav.

As we walk there this year, the music that can be heard in a distance hits a chord. The bhangra sound and Bollywood tunes mean we must be walking in the right direction. And then we point and chuckle at the happily messy faces we begin to see: red, green, yellow, blue. A Holi-coloured face is always a delight to watch… Hair, clothes, palms, even pants and shoes are all smeared with colour. The ‘smear campaign’ is well and truly on! People are chatting away in excitement, and you can hear peals of laughter everywhere. There’s such a feeling of abandon that you feel the urge to join in, and that is exactly what we do…we get into the ‘colouring-ring’, an area cordoned off to let people throw coloured powder on each other. It’s mayhem inside the mosh-pit, but the most masti we’ve had since – last Holi! Yes, this is a piece of India we all crave to experience. Little kids sit on their dads’ shoulders to watch in amazement. Onlookers of other nationalities, surprised and bewildered, step forward courageously to participate in the colourful indulgence. Their faces are worth any tabloid cover page. Memories are captured and the experience will be ruminated on for a long time.

But soon it’s lunch-time, and dosa, chole bhature, rice and curry, ice-sorbet-golas, sugar cane juice confuse us. Are the food stalls less in number this year, or am

I just extra hungry? Who knows, but the choice comes with a heavy opportunity cost. Line up, and miss the shows! We grab a samosa and lassi, and decide to relax and enjoy the experience.

One after another various dance items in various traditional genres: Kathak, Bhangra, Bharata Natyam, Kuchipudi and a potpourri of Bollywood. There are a couple of bands too that show off their talent. Geetanjali and Nupur dance academies have been known for their young recruits. When these kids perform, you have to admit the minor confusion they go through couldn’t make it more enjoyable. My personal favourite is the Bhangra dance. This particular performance was authentic. Participants dressed in bright yellow and blue take us to the beautiful green land of Punjab (talk of colour!). The beats just reverberate in your heart.

“The success of Holi Mahotsav could not have been possible without the selfless untiring support of nearly thousand artists and performers from a large number of dance academies and cultural groups,” Bhavan Australia director Gambhir Watts would say later. “We bow before and salute them with humility and greatest gratitude”.

Besides the music and dance, this year there’s also yoga, prayers and meditation activities, Chinese and Balinese dance, a variety of business and craft stalls, and dance and art workshops (such as the one by special invitee Shila Mehta, renowned Kathak dancer from India). And of course, the ISKCON rathyatra, a yagna fire ceremony), mainstream school kids in India-mode (including a little Aussie Gandhi!), and a whole host of dignitaries visiting.

I have a more specific reason to visit Holi Mela this time. Remember the Kolaveri Mob that performed at Pitt Street not so long ago?

Well, that was my wife and I, and a few dozen of our friends. After that fun experience, the participants insisted that we do another one. And so are here with – what else – a racier number to incorporate the Holi spirit, ending with the high-octane Rang de basanti! Throngs of people, this time more aware and more prepared, bring out phone cameras and muscle their way forward to get a better view. Suddenly we feel the space is limited! The spectators want not only a closer view, but also to join in!

Holi is known to bring out the extremes in people, and do we see that here? We certainly do! More pics on pg 36-37

It’s mayhem inside the mosh-pit, but the most masti we’ve had since – last Holi! Yes, this is a piece of India we all crave to experience.