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Essentially a spring festival, Holi is festival of colors. Celebrated in
the month of March, Holi is celebrated with a lot of fervor, joy and merriment
not just in Gujarat but whole of India.
LEGENDS:
 There
are many legends related to the reason for the celebration of Holi. By one
account, demoness Hoda was killed by children, reducing her on a heap, which was
then lighted, thereby circumventing her boon of immortality.
Another version treats it as day when child Krishna had sucked the demoness
Putna to death.
In yet another version, which is popular in Gujarat, Prahlad, the son of the
demon King Hiranyakashyap had emerged unhurt from the heap of fire he was made
to sit on, in the lap of Holika, who got burnt instead. Thus on a full moon day
of Spring, Holi is celebrated to commemorate the event of one's belief.
CELEBRATION:
The festival is celebrated by lighting a bonfire of wood and cowdung, which is
erected in a conical shape over a small pit, which is dug at the bottom. Such
fires are lit on almost all the important cross-sections of roads. Elders
predict the timing of the monsoon on the basis of the direction in which the
flag planted atop falls. Devotees offer coconut to the fire and the youth
retrieve them amidst applause of bystanders.
It is also the principal religious festival of Adivasis in Gujarat. They abandon
work and indulge in ceaseless folk dancing. The girls observe this festival by
growing wheat in the bamboo baskets filled with earth and manure. In some tribes
people indulge in the foulest of abuse and mock fights.
DHULETI:
The next day after Holi is Dhuleti or Dhuli Padvo. Literally, it means throwing
of mud, the practice, which had given way to throwing of vermilion. At times,
the merrymaking lapses into unhindered revelry as youngsters indulge into
throwing colors, not only on their friends but also on strangers taking
advantage of the permissiveness granted on the occasion.
THE TRIBAL FERVOR:
In the villages of Panchmahals, Adivasi men play a martial game known as
Gol-Gadheda in which the women after snatching a shoulder scarf from a man, ties
it on a tree top with a lump of molasses. It is the job of the man to retrieve
it from the tree, which is vigorously guarded by women. The game goes on till
one of the men succeeds in securing the bundle. Such is the boundless
merrymaking of the day.
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