PSYCHEDELIC

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue.Colors changing hue,
morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.


Dreaming teens saw me being fanatic about Vincent. Not that I am an art aficionado. Van Gogh used colour arbitrarily and symbolically to express himself forcefully. I liked that…because the post-impressionist period in the history of art and literature is one my favourites. As a kid I would identify myself with different colours at different times. It was usually green because I believed it to be the colour that pervades the world…the blood of everything that grows.

No matter what, everyone should have a happy childhood to look back upon. Growing up was phenomenal for me because Holi was an integral part of this period…. It is not only its chromatic quality that makes this occasion special for me but the memories…the lingering images of those days.

It was not just about splashing colours on one another for a few hours but the mood that built up over many days before the festival. My friends and I meticulously adhered to the myriad rituals, though picayune that constituted Holi. Some of these rituals are inherently a part of the festival whilst my childhood friends and I created most of the others. We would begin two days prior to the actual colour-spraying day, to scour the streets of our locality in order to buy powders of primary colours that would come off easily and powders mixed with other ingredients that would make “ indelible marks” on those we coloured. The former, we called “kaccha colours” and used them on people we were fond of and the latter, we called “pakka colours” and used them especially on one of the “uncles” in our building. We detested him. These pakka colours were weapons for seeking vengeance in terms of those who had wronged us. The watchman of our building, who was a telltale, was our primary target. He kept us from indulging in anything that was categorically termed as mischief by our parents. I thought it was very evil of us but then we forgave ourselves since we were not nasty enough to use oil paints. Filling water balloons used to be a walloping task ahead of us that we would achieve religiously the previous night. I would unconsciously label every feeling I had with a colour on the day of Holi. I would feel red while filling balloons…probably because it radiates vitality. We would congregate in one of our flats in the building on the false pretext of “burning midnight oil” (studying). I felt mixed emotions of trepidation over the possibility of being caught by my parents and exhilaration of sneaking up and completing a whopping task. Holi was about this emotional graph of slight fear, anticipation and exultation. On this day we shed our inhibitions in terms of our appearances…we didn’t mind looking like demons in multi-coloured disfiguration.

Bhang was as close as we could get to any form of a drug, as kids. Ghujiyas,bhang ,thandai…add music to that and we had our party… thanks to a family originally from Vrindavan, residing in our building. The best part was when we sat bhang-inebriated. A friend had to be actually pulled away from the washbasin when she didn’t stop washing her hands for over twenty minutes! We mixed different colours in our water tank…mix blue and yellow and you get green, mix red and yellow and you get orange…mix a few other colours and you have a kaleidoscope. I can trace my love for colours to Holi. It’s difficult to define the experience but it would last well into the evening. Intense and distorted perception, vivid colours and bizarre patterns characterized it. Psychedelic! That comes straight out of my psychology books!

Our celebrations of Holi started mellowing down as most of us grew up and moved out. It was a like mass migration of most of my friends residing in my building. I didn’t realize when, being doused in a rainbow of colours started being unwelcome as I walked out of my house for work. I wish I could regain the old intimacy with the festival. I feel blue as I miss enjoying holi…or yellow when I pass those scenes like a traveler. These memories are like unattainable reflections that haunt me.
The stillness of these memories is the reason why they don’t awaken desire so much as a vast sorrow. It is strange that these memories have one quality…they are completely calm but not achromatic!