Hula Hoops and Holi

I don’t know why but the word 'Holi' reminds me of Hula Hoops and ever since hearing the word 'Holi' I haven’t stopped craving the God dam things. I have scoured the street sheds or shops as they are more commonly known for a bag but to no avail. I’m not asking for the BBQ Beef or Cheese and Onion flavour just the original, ready salted, red bagged variety! Any help in locating a packet would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, there is more to this post than my need for a potato based snack, this post is about our first Holi (Hula Hoops, Hula Hoops- stop it!!) in India. For those of you who don’t know, Holi has an ancient origin and celebrates the triumph of 'good' over 'bad'. On this day, people hug, wish each other 'Happy Holi’, get intoxicated and cover each other with beautiful colours.

Our Holi day was spent with friends and the battle the celebrations took place on our roof terrace. The first duty of the day was to prepare the Bhang. Bhang is basically a Marijuana based drink or bite which is supposed to

make you high so you enjoy the Holi Festival in the traditional way. I know what your thinking ‘Sophie, Marijuana – You’ve changed’ But who can argue with tradition? Holi without Bhang is like Christmas without Jesus, would you take Jesus out of Christmas?? Would you??

Bhang tastes like a mixture between grass and dirt which was actually quite nice, I had about 3 glasses, but it didn’t really effect me because I’m hardcore (not a hardcore drug addict, just hardcore in general)




After the Bhang we engaged in ‘The play of colour’, it sounds so civilised but it wasn’t, armed with water guns and giant syringes, we started spraying each other with water based paint, aiming for the eyes and face because that’s where you can inflict the most colour damage (and potentially blindness). At one stage Paul jumped on to me and ground yellow powdered colour into my brain (I think he has a little too much Bhang) There were no winners and no losers; it was just good old fashioned fun!

That was until the ‘feds’ arrived; well not the 'feds' but the lift man (the same lift man who had commited kitten murder and attempted cat murder) and his mate.

“Excuse me sirrr you need police licence to play Holi on roof terrace, we call them now” (You don’t need a police licence, as we had checked with the nice lift man on Friday, they were basically just trying it on)

Luckily Tarun, Pauls bosses brother and Bhang maker extraordinaire, knew their game but as it was Holi gave the pair of kill joys 1000 rupees so they would leave us alone, Paul also negotiated the cleaning of the terrace to be included in their pay off so the joke was on them, as it was a state!

After a couple of hours, with skin more colourful than a rainbow and slightly stained, we wrapped it up.

Happy Hula Hoops, I mean, Happy Holi everyone!