Happy Holi

Image: GETTY

After a long winter, the Hindu festival of colors has been celebrated all over India for centuries. Especially these days, I want to evoke its spirit of good triumphing over evil.

One of the Holi origin stories chronicles the tale of king Hiranyakashipu and his son Prahlad, according to Encyclopædia Britannica.  The king demanded everyone in the kingdom worship him — and if they didn't, he would punish or kill them.  Prahlad chose to worship Vishnu instead. Feeling betrayed, the father asked his sister, Holika (for whom the festival is named), to help kill Prahlad. Owning a fire-resistant cloak, Holika tried to trick her nephew by taking him into a fire, but since she sought to use her cloak for evil, it flew off of her and onto Prahlad.
Prahlad was saved and Vishnu defeated Hiranyakashipu. Bonfires are lit on the evening of Holi in celebration. The next day people meet in the streets and joyfully throw colorful powders into the air and onto each other until they are fully cloaked. Red stands for love and fertility, yellow for natural remedies like turmeric, blue for Vishnu and green for new beginnings.

It reminds me of the joyous, anything-is-possible feeling I get when reading Danna Faulds' poem
"Nothing is Impossible"

I tell you, this was no
   ordinary rainbow.
It stretched low and wide,
   the spectrum reaching 
inside the mountain, tickling
   the tops of trees with indigo and red.
I gaped and laughed and leaped.
   I tell you, it was something,
this rainbow, and I took it
   for a sign.
"A sign for what? you ask
   "That nothing is impossible,"
I answer. That gladiolas
   can shoot up through a blue
Persian rug; that the
   stars in Orion's belt can join
a rhythm and blues band;
   that squirrels can count change
at the basketball game;
   and grapefruits as big as bowling
bowls can roll into the 
   kitchen in time for tomorrow's 
breakfast. I tell you, this 
   was no run of the mill rainbow.
The arc is with me still, 
   its promise steering me clear
of whatever passes 
   for normality around here.

Let's travel that rainbow from darkness to light, from fear to faith and from tragedy to triumph.
And for the people in Ukraine and Russia: Shanti, shanti, shanti - peace, peace, peace.