Experiencing Religious Festivals: Holi Festival Report - LIBS1110

This report offers a comprehensive overview of the Holi festival, a significant celebration primarily within Hinduism, exploring its religious and cultural dimensions. It delves into the festival's origins, including the legend of Prahlad and Holika Dahan, and its evolution over time. The report examines the rituals and traditions associated with Holi, such as the burning of Holika, the throwing of colors, and the exchange of greetings. It also analyzes the festival's impact on society, including its role in fostering community, promoting social harmony, and its adaptation in contemporary times. Furthermore, it discusses the use of natural and synthetic colors, and the importance of environmental consciousness. Overall, the report highlights the significance of Holi as a symbol of joy, togetherness, and the triumph of good over evil, and its relevance in the context of world religions.

Running head: HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
WORLD RELIGION: HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
Holi is the most favourite festival in India which brings lots of joy and
happiness through its colours. This festival comprises of different languages,
different religion, and mostly the different cultures (Batabyal & Das, 2019). The Holi
festival is celebrated every year, especially by the Hindu religion, as this is a very
important festival to them. This festival falls during the impending session of spring
season probably in the month of March (or in the month of Phalgun). People from a
different religion or from different races mostly wait for this particular time for this
festival with lots of enthusiasm, happiness along with special preparations for this
festival. This essay will cover the world religion on the aspect of the festival Holi (Das
et al., 2015).
The day before the Holi festival is a ritual called ‘Holika Dahan’ which is
conducted in a large heap of bonfire which is burned in cities and villages. This ritual
of ‘Holika Dahan’ symbolizes the burning of evil and along with the burning of all the
negative power (Gupta et al., 2015). This ‘Holika-Dahan’ ritual also re-experienced
the story of Holika, who was the evil sister of Hiranyakaskyap who tried to kill his
nephew Prahlad by sitting on to the bonfire (Jain et al., 2015). But by the God’s
grace Holika who had a boon of immortality was burned to ashes and Prahlad was
saved unharmed. People also make rounds of Holika while chanting the devotional
mantras and singing bhajans to seek health and prosperity.
After ‘Holika Dahan’, everybody celebrates the colourful festival of Holi while
meeting together at a particular place and throwing colours to each other playfully
(Jain, 2019). This Holi festival preparations start before a week at the main festival.
Every People, especially children, are highly enthusiastic about this particular date.
They start with the enjoyment by buying different colours a week before the day of

2
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
Holi festival. There is a great story of Prahlad behind the Holi celebration. One day
Prahlad’s father had tried to kill his own son, who was a devotee of God, had denied
worshiping his father rather worship the Almighty. Prahlad’s aunt named Holika was
sitting once into the fire by holding Prahlad in her lap. She had maintained an order
which was given by Prahlad’s father to sit with Prahlad. As a result Prahlad was
saved without any harm by the grace of God. Prahlad had proved himself as a true
and holy devotee of God. Prahlad’s aunt Holika was scorched totally in the fire
although she had a blessing or grace of God never to get harmed by the fire (Kumar
et al., 2015). From that day onwards, people following Hinduism celebrate this holy
occasion of Holi every year to cherish or to recall the victory of good over the evil.
Before the day of Holi festival, people burn a pile of wooden sticks and cow
dung cakes in the evening on that day resembling the burning of Holika to reminisce
that day. In contemporary society, everybody plays the Holi by splashing water
colors on each other. Children throw water colours by using water cannons or
‘pichkari’ to enjoy the festival (Masavkar et al., 2017). In the evening, people dress
up in attractive attire and visit their friends and relatives and hug them by applying
‘gulal’ or ‘abir’, the dry colours. People also sing folk songs and dance to the tune of
famous Holi songs. Every people celebrate this Holi festival playfully with great
enthusiasm. People start playing ‘Holi’ with various colours with their mates,
surrounded neighbours and with relatives with ‘pichkari’ and small balloons. The Holi
celebration gets started in the morning when people with lots of colours visit their
friends and relatives and colour them. Holi delicacies comprise of ‘Gujhiya’, Sweets,
‘Pani Puri’, ‘Dahi bade’, Chips and many more food items which are enjoyed by the
guests and as well as by the hosts.

3
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
Holi is not only the festival of Hindus but also for all the religions. Holi is not
like the other festival of different religion which has a particular religious zeal of any
deity (PATIL et al., 2019). The festival calls for pure joy, love with no religious
obligations what so ever. It is very difficult to imagine Holi celebrations without
colours. In fact, this festival also called- the festival of colours. People mostly play
with coloured powders which are locally called ‘gulal’. They spray gulal on their
friends and family members, greeting each other by saying “Happy Holi” and hugging
each other. Children could be seen playing in groups with various types of water
guns (pichkari).
During the time of Holi, the houses and streets all get coloured with a
combination of beautiful and bright red, yellow, blue, orange and violet. With the
chilly winds of winter gone, people wear lose clothes and sprinkle each other with
colours and coloured water (Prabhu et al., 2016). Everyone is painted in different
colours from tip to toe; so much so, that it takes a moment or two to recognize even
one’s closest friend.
Holi is basically a two days festival. It gets started by the beginning on the
evening of a full moon day (which is called ‘Purnima’ in local terms) in the Hindu
month of Phalgun (Saddiqa et al., 2019). The colour of Holi is played on the second
day morning. The first day of Holi is called ‘Choti’ Holi (which means Small), and a
ritual of Holika Dahan is conducted in the evening. Bonfires are made at every street
junctions or other at some suitable places in the market, roads, streets, colonies and
so on. During that time People burn their old belongings into the fire. The
significance of burning their belongings are the feelings of their enmity, hatred and

4
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
the acrimony. This ritual also signifies the victory of good over the evil demons
respectively.
The Holi festival has many positive and good effects on the personality of an
individual as well as their social relations. It is a festival to throw away the shyness of
an individual and create a suitable bonding with new friends. This festival could be a
better way to make new friends. The festival helps every person to identify their inner
joy, which had been lying suppressed inside themselves. The rejection of their
shyness, hesitation and all the emotions that have been holding them back in daily
life could be abolished by this colourful festival (Shivhare & Rastogi, 2016). With just
a little effort from the inside, a person will create or make a new world of colour, love
and joy. In this way spraying colour on whoever, without any hesitation will make a
new friendship with happiness and enthusiasm. This Holi celebration is the best
festival which is surely remembered by every individual that how they had celebrated
it in the last year.
During the time of Holi festival, lots of temporary shops could be seen selling
different types of colours to the people. Basically, all the colours are available in the
form of powder often constitute with the toxic metals like copper, mercury, aluminium
and lead. All those colours may also contain some harmful dyes and paints, which is
not suitable for use by humans (Singh et al., 2017). The use of those cheap synthetic
colours results in a considerable number of ailments, ranging from mild skin rashes
to as severe case like cancer. Some of the examples of skin lesions, burning
sensation and eye irritation are also reported during the time of Holi festival, possibly
due to the toxic compounds which had been mixed with the colours. The synthetic
colours are sometimes prepared with the base of corn starch or flour, whose

5
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
dangerous toxic along with the impurities items make the situation worst.
Fortunately, in the present scenario, people are getting more conscious about the
harmful effects or ill-effects of the artificial colours. Concerning this matter, a custom
of using naturally derived colours is developing day by day and it is being practised
wide manner. By choosing those colours derived from natural resources, people not
only save their health but also they are saving the environment simultaneously.
When the natural colours are coming out from the soil or water resources, it does not
pollute them like the synthetic colours do (Stieler & Germelmann, 2016). All the
Natural colours are derived from the natural, harmless minerals like gulal, Mehendi,
turmeric etc. Apart from natural resources, flowers are also used to make the
colours, like the red colour is produced from the roses, the simultaneously yellow
colour is produced from sunflower. Apart from this, many natural colours can be
produced from plants and flowers.
Into the premise of Radha-Rani temple at Barsana, which is a small town near
Mathura, another famous ritual of ‘Lath- Mar- Holi’ is being celebrated for the past
few decades. People from the countryside or nearby places like Nandgaon, visit
Barsana where the women would hit them with sticks, which are traditionally called
‘lathis’ in Hindi (Wilson et al., 2017). On the other hand, men would protect
themselves with shields, and those who got caught are made to dance wearing
women attire which is the more attractive part of this ritual. Nowadays, the Lath-Mar-
Holi of Barsana has become very popular, and millions of people along with the
native Indians as well as foreign tourists are also visiting Barsana to watch this
celebration.

6
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
Therefore, Holi is a festival of colour, which is celebrated every year with
happiness, fun and joy. Get ready to drench in water and colour, but also be careful
not to harm yourself and others. Open your mind, shed your inhibitions, make new
friends, pacify the unhappy ones and repair broken relationships. While playing the
Holi, always be playful as well as be sensitive to others. One ought to keep it in mind
to not to harm anyone unnecessarily and always keep your conduct composed.
Finally the last but not the least, which is to take a resolve to play only with the
natural colours in Holi.
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that the festival of colours
is celebrated with the joy, happiness and dedication to all the religion. The main
theme of celebrating this Holi festival is to celebrate the grand victory of good over
evil. The way of celebrating the Holi festival is based upon religion. It is also
analyzed that the beliefs of people are converting into myths because of this festival
which may cause harm to the environment and the resources.
Contrary to the negative impact, Holi sprays the colour towards all the people
of different classes, different groups, and different religion. There is no class division,
no contrast, and no religious aspect. This festival is the celebration for every
individual. Holi festival is the symbol of togetherness. This festival is celebrated all
over the globe, and it is considered as one of the best festival in India.

7
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
REFERENCES
Batabyal, D., & Das, D. K. (2019). Urban and Rural Ecotourism in and Around
Bolpur: A Study of Destination Marketing and Challenges–Ecotourism
Practices in West Bengal, India. In Global Trends, Practices, and Challenges
in Contemporary Tourism and Hospitality Management (pp. 99-116). IGI
Global.
Das, P., Goswami, N., & Borah, P. (2015). Development of Low Cost Eco-friendly
‘Holi’Powder.
Gupta, A., Gautam, S., Mehta, N., Patel, M. K., & Talatiya, A. (2019). Association
between changes in air quality and hospital admissions during the holi
festival. SN Applied Sciences, 1(2), 163.
Jain, S., Jakhar, P., Pandey, N., & Shivkumar, V. B. (2015). Urticarial Vasculitis
Following Exposure to Holi Colors: A Rarity. Egyptian Dermatology Online
Journal, 11(2), 2.
Jain, T. K. (2019). Concept of Happy City: the Smart Cities of the Future. Available at
SSRN 3314531.
Kumar, S., Singh, A., & Singh, A. K. (2015). Impact of ‘Holi’festival on Aerosol optical
properties in Indo-Gangetic Plain. Int J Adv Earth Sci, 4(1), 19-28.
Masavkar, S. S., Mauskar, A., Patwardhan, G., Bhat, V., & Manglani, M. V. (2017).
Acquired methemoglobinemia–A sporadic Holi disaster. Indian
pediatrics, 54(6), 473-475.

8
HOLI – THE FESTIVAL OF COLORS
PATIL, S. H., KURLAPKAR, D. D., & GAIKWAD, D. K. (2019). Dye-yielding plant
resources of Maharashtra, India: A checklist. Biodiversitas Journal of
Biological Diversity, 20(1), 250-266.
Prabhu, S. V., Soni, A., Panwar, P., & Shridhar, V. (2016). Aerosols Characterization
during the Holi festival in Dehradun: Foothills of the Himalayas, India. Indian
Journal of Forestry, 39(3), 335-343.
Saddiqa, A., Garcia, M. I. M., & Ali, N. (2019). Proliferation of Multi-Cultures Through
Globalization: Is It Promoting the Indigenous Culture or Global
Culture?. International Journal of English Linguistics, 9(2).
Shivhare, P., & Rastogi, D. (2016). Environmental Impact Assessment Due To
Festivals. International Journal of Engineering Technology Science and
Research, 3, 166-172.
Singh, R. K., Srivastava, M. K., Mehrotra, B. J., Murari, V., Sharma, S. K., Mandal, T.
K., ... & Tiwari, S. (2017, December). Biomass-burning during Holika at
Varanasi (25.3 N, 83.0 E): Optical observations and Aerosol Radiative
Forcing. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts.
Stieler, M., & Germelmann, C. C. (2016). The ties that bind us: Feelings of social
connectedness in socio-emotional experiences. Journal of Consumer
Marketing, 33(6), 397-407.
Wilson, C., Auspelmyer, J., & Hollenbeck, K. (2017). SHOW.