I capitulated and switched on the aircon for a bit last night. Assuming you’re alive and reading this, I can sense the frisson of quizzical wonder—what’s capitulating got to do with it? If I’m feeling the heat, I ought to disperse it with the appliance specifically meant to do that. Simple, right? Maybe not.
Something in me rebels at the idea of using the AC in March. To be fair, I’ve been thinking about it since February, so yeah, the climate is definitely fucked and will only get worse year on year. Pune winters are already a distant memory, so the idea of holding out is at best an exercise in building resistance, at worst, delusional.
As far as I can recall, the heat ratchets up around or after Holi. That was yesterday, so perhaps my resistance was subconscious. Psychobabble aside, I need to get this off my chest—I don’t understand Holi.
Sure, I understand the traditional and cultural significance and whatnot, but man, for adults, the celebration should last about five minutes. Maybe ten if you have a larger group around. You daub colour on people and… well, that’s that, right? Honestly, without alcohol or bhang, there’s no way the celebration extends beyond half an hour, tops. The music, the dancing… bit of a bouncer.
Actually, let me clarify—I think Holi is a great festival… for kids. They’ve got the energy to run around, screeching and hollering, engaging in water balloon fights and chucking colour at each other, and that’s fucking brilliant. What dulls the incandescence are the hordes of psychotic clowns on vehicles, driving like lunatics, inebriated or worse. Absolute public menaces. Mate, you’re not getting on the cover of National Geographic or Getty, featured in one of those smarmy photo essays that ostensibly showcase LMIC revelry. Those are shot by experts in carefully chosen, picturesque locales—mostly in North India, which D.P. Road at 11 AM assuredly is not.
Holi has evolved ugly—an excuse for adults to behave boorishly. I just don’t get it. Never have, never will.
Maybe the situation is best encapsulated by a WhatsApp group exchange I read. A friend in Bombay was imploring his housing society to celebrate Holi responsibly by using less hydro—a reasonable ask, considering the inevitable water shortages around the corner. The counter-message being circulated, however, was that people should save water the other 364 days of the year so that nothing interferes with “our”… “traditional”… festivals.
Quite.
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