Pallavi I am going to drench you in colours

My earliest recollections of Holi are of the time when I was just five years old. I would visit the market with my mother. When I would spot pichkaris and colours put for sale I would realise that Holi was around the corner. I would pester my mother to buy me a pichkari. She would oblige and buy me one.

The pichkaris were of varied shapes and sizes. The gun and the traditional pichakaris were the most popular. Once my father had brought me a pichkari which looked like a birnjal. Though as a child I detested brinjal, I had absolutely liked the brinjal pichkari. That day when I went to play Holi with my friends, my pichakari became the show stopper.

I would go to my friend’s garden to play Holi. All my playmates Vedika, Shachi, Sampada and Madhavi would have assembled there. My mother would also buy me one or two colours, in their powder forms. I would mix them in water and carry my little bucket with pichkari dipped into it. We would splash the coloured water through our pichkaris.

Sometimes the elder siblings of my friends would join our play, take the centre stage and leave us with only the fringe benefits. On one such occasions Pallavi, Madhavi’s elder sister had joined our Holi celebrations. She decided that the green colour should be mixed into the big barrel which lay in the garden.

She asked who all had brought green colour. Shachi and Sampada gave the green colour which they had bought. I too had got green. But I was reluctant to part with it. But Pallavi bullied me and made me pour my colour into the barrel. “After mixing Gundu’s colour, the water has become greener.” She had commented. I had disliked she taking away my colour. Thereafter she made me to stand in the barrel and everyone threw water on me with their hands. The water went into my nose. I began to cry. I could never forgive Pallavi for what she had done. But last year Pallavi succumbed to a fatal cancer. People come into your life and they go away like colour of Holi. So value them when they are with you.

After playing Holi, I would return home with my empty bucket and pichkari. My mother would bathe me. She would rub my body and ensure that no colour was left on my body. After bathing me she would apply vaporub on my chest and back so that I would not catch cold. Till date I remember my mother caring for me so that I wouldn’t catch cold after getting drenched in colours for long hours.

Today there are no playmates and there are no colours. But this Holi, I am going send colours to all my playmates. Pallavi I am going to drench you into the barrel of colours. So what if the colours and you are now only in my memories? 
“I’m pledging to #KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”