Holi celebrations in India and abroad
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Holi Hai
You have an extended weekend. The weather is just perfect for a drive out of Delhi. So head for Brajbhoomi, the land associated with Lord Krishna’s childhood
MATHURA
Lord Krishna’s association with Mathura goes back to his birth. He was born in Mathura but brought up in Vrindavan. Legend has it that when he complained to his mother Yashoda about Radha’s fair complexion, she asked him to smear Radha’s face with colour. This marked the beginning of the festivities. Today, the weeklong celebrations are held with great fervour at Gulal Kund near Govardhan hill. Revellers apply gulal on each other and drench themselves in the waters of the lake. Young boys enact the story of Krishna’s childhood.
VRINDAVAN
Fifteen kilometres from Mathura is Vrindavan, the place that resounds with tales of the Lord’s mysticism and divinity. During Holi, celebrations and divinity coalesce to spread the message of oneness with Krishna and love for our brethren. One of the distinctive features of Holi in Mathura and Vrindavan is that the temples dedicated to Lord Krishna celebrate the festival on different days. The most important celebrations take place at Banke Bihari Temple where the assembled crowds chant the name of the Lord and his consort with passion.
BARSANA/NANDGAON
The birthplace of Radha, is the centre of boisterous celebrations during Holi. Located 15 km from Vrindavan, it is here in Barsana that Krishna teased his beloved and her friends. In present-day festivities, young men from Nandgaon, where Krishna spent many days of his youth, come to Barsana to play Holi with the women. Instead of gulal, they greet each other with sticks, hence the name lathmaar Holi.
According to tradition, the men must put a flag atop the local Radha Rani Temple with the women using every trick in the book to stop them. Making the men wear saris or lehengas, beating them up with sticks… everything is fair in this battle of the sexes. In a symbolic revenge on Lord Krishna for playing pranks on the gopis, the women continue undaunted. But there comes a time when they are exhausted. It is then that the men take over. They use buckets of coloured water to drench the women. Now it’s a fair deal!
MAKE YOUR OWN COLOURS RED
Sun dry rose petals in tissue papers and grind them to make a fine powder. YELLOW: Boil marigold flowers in water and leave them overnight. Strain and use the colour next morning. ORANGE: Add turmeric, marigold petals and sandalwood powder in water and bring to a boil. Let it cool before you use this bright yellow colour. GREEN: Powder sun-dried spinach, coriander and gulmohar leaves to make a fine green mix. PURPLE: Blend jamun juice with lavender oil and arrowroot for that royal hue. ROSE COLOUR: This is simple — mix powdered rose petals, some arrowroot and tea rose oil for that rich colour.
Holi and Sri Krishn
Divine Raas Leela Of Unconditional Love
Seema Burman
Sharad means winter and mahotsav is festival. Though this is the month of Phalgun, it was in Sharad on a full moon night that millennia ago in Vrindavan a dance of love was performed by Krishna, a child of seven years, and the gopis. This came to be known as raas leela.
Swami Vivekananda said that the raas leela is an external expression of divine leela which takes place in the heart of each and every individual, between the finite and the universal soul. Unless we have unflinching love and faith, Krishna and his life would always baffle us.
Take for instance Radha’s love. So enchanted was Krishna with Radha’s love, pure and divine, that He wished to experience it Himself. Radha told Krishna to incarnate so that she could infuse ‘Radha bhava’ in that incarnation. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is believed to be Krishna’s incarnation with Radha Bhava.
Only those who become “mad” with love can understand the love of gopis who are the personification of unconditional love. Krishna’s intellectual friend Uddhava asked Him: “Are all paths of spiritual advancement equally efficacious or is any one of them more important than the others?” Krishna answered: “All other paths by themselves cannot reach me without the help of supreme love or devotion. Knowledge alone is not enough. It cannot purify the mind and without purity of mind what results can one achieve?”
Sages who had done rigorous tapasya in their previous births reincarnated as gopis and were waiting to merge with their beloved God in this raas leela.
Krishna is the ideal lover, householder and sanyasi who, even while being detached, shows the world that true love is unconditional. When Radha and the gopis want to know why Krishna can’t meet them just once, Uddhava says, “The Lord knows that distance will make you love Him with more intensity and that is the secret to reach Him, to remember Him constantly.” Worldly people find it difficult to understand a love so pure that it wants nothing, expects nothing.
Krishna has revealed all aspects of love to us. Devotees are permitted to love Him in any which way. They think of Krishna constantly and the result is they get merged with Him. Uddhava meets the village girls and offers to take them to Mathura where Krishna resides. They refuse, saying: “Our Krishna is a cowherd, He plays the flute, He loves the cows, wears no slippers. Bring back our Krishna, Uddhava.”
When he offers to carry their messages they reply: “Messages are sent for one who is away but for one who is entrenched in our soul, what message can we send?” Uddhava says: “Close your eyes and meditate on Him in your heart.” The gopis cry: “But Uddhava, how can we close our eyes? Look, there He is on the tree, on each leaf, now in the Yamuna, there grazing that cow, look around, Krishna is everywhere. Krishna is smiling at us, He is stealing our butter.”
Radha then becomes Krishna and dances with the gopis and plays the flute. Like Krishna she teases them, hides behind trees and runs away. Till now Uddhava had meditated upon Krishna in his heart with closed eyes but now he sees Krishna everywhere. A transformation comes over Uddhava who cries on seeing the gopis and bows to them in reverence. No wonder Krishna’s dance of love is unsurpassable and if one even witnesses an enactment of it one might understand the true import of divine love.
Today is Holi. It is also Sri Chaitanya’s birth anniversary
