Storizen March 2018 Holi Special Issue Holi 2018 Special Issue | Page 28

STORIZEN CONTRIBUTE
majorly aggressive beings who would
only want to colour/spoil faces of
their opponents.
Holi brought out some kind of
evilness and most of the men would
translate it into taking revenge of all
sorts for any pending action of their
opponents.
It wasn't the festival of just colours in
Allahabad; but it included the use of
 cow dung and muck from the drains
in the name of Holi.
Avantika never saw girls of her age
playing Holi in her town. Only the
married women were allowed to play
this colour game. Actually they were
allowed one way. When amongst
women they would be allowed to be
fair with both sides coloring each
other but when it came to play with
males; the same formula didn't work
at all. As an unwritten rule the
women were not supposed to apply
colour on the male faces.
May be either they were badly
colored when they came in front of
the women or they were too drunk
for these women to touch these
men’s faces.
Avantika was always keen to watch
how these women saved themselves
from the drunken male friends of
their husbands.
The men would one by one come
close to the woman; she would
straighten her saree, and would try to
cover her bosom a little more just to
ensure her softness doesn't get hurt
by the action of playing Holi.
The men meantime would keep an
eye on the woman just as if hawking
a prey just caught.They would first
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pour the dry powder colour in his
rough palms; add some water / liquid
paint / Greece; rub his palms
vigorously; showing his white or may
be colour stained teeth in that wicked
smile; advance and would  tease her
to stop him or apply colour on his
face. The woman would bring her
closed fists(full of red colour) from
behind and would tiptoe to rub them
over to the man’s face. Avantika
considered this as some kind of
sport-  amatch betweentwo
opponents in a battle field. But soon
the man would hold her advancing
hands. The woman would almost be
pinned down. And now was the
chance of the man to take revenge of
the likely assault that she was
planning on him. He would now hold
her protesting hands by one hand
and with the other smear the colors
on her face and as part of
punishment he would take his colour
stained finger to her teeth and would
run it vigorously. She would be
spitting the bitter taste of all the
mixture.
The man wouldn't be done yet. He
would then bring his hands to her
hair passing on all the wet colours
much against the wishes of that lady.
The lady by now would have been
empowered completely.
She would stop resisting thinking
now the damage has already been
done. She would however try to
rearrange her saree that has been
ruffled because of the vigorous
exercise by the man.
The second man who would probably
be feeling left out from the privilege
of touching the woman's skin first,
would now be advancing towards the