STORIZENCONTRIBUTE
South Africa , and , as far away as Fiji , Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica .
I have childhood memories of taking part in Holi festivities while living and growing in Tanzania , East Africa . I lived in a town called Kigoma , on the shores of Lake Tanganyika , in western Tanzania , which was a melting pot of a small community of Hindus , Sikhs and Muslims - all collectively called Asians . They formed the backbone of professionals and the local business setups .
Together , the entire Asian community showed such love and friendship despite their religious backgrounds , and we all often joined to celebrate each other ’ s festivals in their respective places of worship . Hindus and Sikhs attended the Hindu Mandir on the shores of the 4,820 feet deep Lake Tanganyika , the world ’ s second largest and deepest sweet water lake in the Rift Valley after Lake Baikal in Russia .
The dominant Hindu community of the town consisted of Gujaratis followed by Punjabis and few Bengalis .
Asian migration to the then Tanganyika ( later renamed Tanzania ) started in the 1800s , but they were joined by other groups over the years .
Many Asians in Kigoma formed part of the new arrivals of the 1950s onwards .
This generation had settled in Tanzania from the Indian sub-continent and was fully aware of the significance of Holy – the arrival of spring in India and others who knew of the importance of this Festival of Colours explained its importance in the mythology – the victory of good over evil after the thwarting of a Hindu demon King . I remember well the night before Holi when a Holika bonfire was lit , and we all circled around it throwing coconuts into the leaping flames . This is to mark the defeat of the demoness Holika .
The following day colors were splashed across all Asian community members met each other , playfully squirting gulal and enjoying a laughing forgetting all their problems .
This was a prime example of building bridges between various Asian religions . It was social cohesion in living color !
Such events built long-lasting friendships many of which have lasted to this day .
One incident comes to mind when as a shy nine-year-old , dressed in a white shirt splashed with splodges of dark red color caught the attention of a local Tanzanian African , who worked as a telephone exchange operator at the Post Office . His first reaction in jest was when asked me in Kiswahili language : “ How many people have you murdered today ?”
He always reminded me of his jokey question several years down the line whenever I phoned the old system manual telephone exchange at a time when you had to be asked to put through to a telephone number in the town .
Celebrations in Dar es Salaam , the economic capital of Tanzania , the Indian Ocean city in the east , the home of 100,000 Hindus at one time , were even more vibrant .
That was also the case with celebrations across the border in Nairobi , Kenya and Kampala , Uganda where there were some 200,000 Hindus at one time but who migrated to the UK and India since then .
Holi is celebrated with full energy by the majority of more than half a million Hindus in South Africa .
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