by Sudha Nair
It was Holi, my favourite festival. Mom called from India to wish me but she could detect the glumness in my voice instead of the usual cheer. My sister and her family were celebrating with my parents too.
After the goodbyes I cradled the phone, feeling my throat choke up, my eyes welling with tears.
Siddharth and I had arrived in Chicago only two months ago. If it had not been for Siddharth’s temporary project that he said would last for only six months, I’d be celebrating Holi at home with my family too.
In Mumbai, where I grew up, we played Holi with colours, pichkaaris (water spray guns) and water balloons.
We’d run amok spraying at each other with pichkaaris. Drums of water would be used up that day. We’d chase each other with colour and balloons, and sometimes we’d hide ourselves on the terrace and pelt water balloons at unsuspecting pedestrians.
When we were older, we guzzled cold beer, and danced, wet and dripping, to popular Holi movie songs for hours. When we dragged ourselves home exhausted, there was always hot chole bhature and sweet jalebis to fill our tummies.
Our first Holi in Chicago dawned twelve and a half hours after India. At five degrees, the grounds were scattered with ice and snow.
Accustomed to the heat and humidity in Mumbai, a handkerchief a constant in my pocket my entire life, I couldn’t bear the weather in Chicago and I dreaded the thought of going out in the cold. I fretted over how to dress for the outdoor community Holi celebration and what it would be like at my first Holi without friends and family.
After breakfast, Siddharth and I drove five miles to the temple hosting the event with our car seat lined with plastic, laden with colours bought from a local Indian store.
The temple courtyard teemed with a sea of colourful bodies dancing to the dhol and music playing in the background. Rings of coloured powder wafted in the air and spurts of laughter carried through the music as groups of merrymakers rejoiced. We hesitated at the entrance, half expecting balloons to burst on our heads at any instant. But of course, given the impracticality of it in the cold no one played with water balloons there.
Yet I couldn’t help ducking when I heard a shout or a whoop, expecting someone to rush at me with colour or water spray. But it was all my imagination. There were no pranksters running towards me or tugging at my sleeves to force me to join their dance or holding me tight to smear my face and hair with colour until I could break free.
Most people kept to their own cliques, playing among themselves. The crowd was quite unlike the brazen, boisterous friends I was used to playing with. Some folks advanced towards me to pat colour on my face in the spirit of Holi but mostly people left us alone.
I smiled at the people who made eye contact, and a few of them smiled back. Throngs of people partied around us but I felt so left out, so lonely among hundreds of unknown faces.
Siddharth went to look for the only folks we knew, a couple of colleagues from his new office. I stood in a far corner waiting for him to return, clinging to the unopened packets of colour, gawking at strangers and not knowing what to do. Holi just didn’t feel like fun.
When Siddharth returned with his colleagues, we hugged and exchanged Holi greetings, smeared colour on each other’s faces and danced a bit.
All the time, the cold hurt my cheeks and stiffened my fingers. The colours in the air managed to find their way up my nose and irritate my adenoids. The stuffiness in the place made it difficult for me to breathe. Missing my family and friends back home compounded all my problems. The more we stayed around the more awful I felt.
In an hour I was begging Siddharth to take me home. I don’t think anyone noticed us leave.
We drove back in silence. It was a relief to step into the heated apartment. I went into the bathroom to wash, ready to burst into tears at how awful this Holi had turned out to be.
Out of the blue I felt a thwack. A plop sounded as water gushed out of what my years of Bombay told me was a water balloon. Stunned, I spun around in disbelief.
Siddharth stood at the doorway grinning, a bunch of water balloons in his hands.
“Where did you get those?” I asked, but he only laughed and shot more at me. Plop, plop, plop, they went, drenching my shirt, dripping onto the bathroom floor. This was just what I had been waiting for. Laughing, I made a dash for the hand shower and squirted water at him. He tried to grab it from me. We tussled, drenched the bathroom floor and ended up having a merry time bathing together. We had to mop up the messy bathroom floor after our shower but it had all been so much fun. By the end of it we were both tired and famished.
“Now for some more fun,” Siddharth said, bringing out the wine and two glasses. He microwaved the chole bhature and jalebis that he had picked up from the Indian store the night before, and served it in the beautiful dishes I had brought with me from India.
We huddled together on the couch, the only piece of furniture we owned, and sipped our wine. Then, as we relished every morsel of the hot bhature scooped up with chole, we reminisced about the simple pleasures and joys that Holi stood for.
He leaned in, tilted my chin up, looked into my eyes, and said he hoped this Holi wasn’t completely ruined for me.
I said it had been overwhelming, of course, but if we were still in Chicago by the next Holi, I’d make friends and be more prepared.
He raised his glass up to clink with mine. “To many more Holis,” he said, kissing me.
“Holi hai,” I said, in true Holi spirit, my eyes moist, heart brimming with happiness.
We tucked into the sweet golden jalebis at the end, smacking at the sugary syrup before it dribbled down our chins.
Pic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/
