Holi

Today is the Hindu holiday Holi (that was an unintentional alliteration), the festival of colors. If you saw the movie Water, it's the holiday when everyone throws colored powder at each other.

Last night I went to the village of one of the primary school teachers, Suresh. Suresh is married to a fieldworker of the NGO, and they live together in the village of Tokrala, a 2 km ride away, with their three-year-old son, Ashok. The school and village are both right off Indian National Highway No. 8, which bisects Gujarat from the Arabian Sea in the Southwest, to the Northeast where it extends into Rajasthan. It's one of the only decent roads I've been on in Gujarat, though it still slows as every other road here does for tremendous herds of sheep or water buffalo, or Hindu revelers dancing as they push a shrine-on-wheels.

We arrived in the village a little after 5 in the afternoon, with the sun low enough to provide a respite from the heat, which had been around 100 degrees a few hours earlier. The main road of Tokrala is unpaved. We passed by the Bharvard (shepherd caste) and Koli Patel (another "mid-level" caste) communities before reaching the Dalit locality on the far side of the village. Suresh’s house is part of an enclave of five or six houses, all packed in around a narrow path. A few cows and buffalos were lounging around the front of the enclave, and Suresh’s home—a one-story concrete structure with two rooms, high ceilings and a clay tile roof—was two or three in on the left. One of the NGO’s village libraries was sitting in the corner of the first room, next to a portable blackboard. The NGO runs these informal education centers in several hundred villages, and I’ve written about them for several reports. Last year I rarely got into the field, though, so I was curious to hear about how this one was working. Suresh said that they run programs every day, and close to thirty children, of all castes, come to play educational games and reinforce the lessons they learn (or, in many cases, don’t learn) at school.

I had tea with Suresh and his wife, and then had more tea at the house across the way, home to one of the students at the primary school. We then walked for about five minutes to Suresh’s in-laws’ home, just outside the enclave and down the way a bit.

I hate to sound like I'm idealizing village life, but the scene there was almost absurdly beautiful. Two grown water buffalos and one calf were relaxing next to a fence in the evening light, which made everything seem to glow. Suresh's father-in-law was just coming back from his farm, and was riding on the back of a bullock cart with one of his daughters and a few grandchildren, all of whom sat on top of some white sacks overflowing with freshly-picked cotton. Two gigantic bulls, their massive horns extending upward and back towards the cart, bobbed their heads under the weight of the yolk.

After his family got off, Suresh’s father-in-law started to place the sacks, each one about three feet in diameter, on his head and carry them towards his house about 15 feet away. I wanted to try and carry one, so he placed one on my head and helped me balance it until I let it fall on top of the other sacks. It was surprisingly heavy and very difficult to balance. He told me it was 30 kg, which is about 66 pounds. The cotton is so light and fluffy, it’s hard to imagine it being so heavy until you have a giant sack of it on your head. I took a closer look at it after I let it drop, and saw that it was crawling with tiny red and brown insects, some of which were no doubt now in my hair. I made a mental note to shampoo when I got back.

Dinner was at Suresh’s house, and was prepared by him, his wife, and his wife’s little sister. It was one of the best home-cooked meals I’ve had in India. I’m not going to be able to describe it well, because I don’t know the names of most of what I ate…but there was a sweet appetizer of chappati, ghee (purified butter) and some kind of sugary thing, fried vegetables in batter called bajiya, a chutney of cauliflower, onions and potato, more chappatis and a kind of whole-grain chappati made from a grain called bhajari, a rice and lentil mixture, milky curry, and butter milk. It was great.

We began to hear the Holi drums towards the end of the meal, so after we washed our hands we headed out towards the sound. Earlier in the day I’d noticed a large pile of wood and dung cakes, some of which were strung into garlands, sitting in an open area of the village, set to become the Holi fire. Yes, in case there is any confusion, I do mean that there were garlands of cow and buffalo dung decorating what would soon become a huge bonfire of flaming poop.

The fire was not yet lit when we arrived. A Brahmin priest sat in front of it, performing some kind of pooja ceremony for two young men from the Rajput community (dominant Kshatriya caste). All the while another young man, standing a bit apart from the rest of the crowd, banged on his drum. Tokrala has just one Valmiki family, and one of the caste duties of the Valmikis is to play drums on certain occasions. The making of drums is considered polluting, because of its association with the tanning on animal hides, which is why it is assigned to a Dalit sub-caste.

Eventually someone came and lit the fire, which quickly engulfed the entire pile of poop and wood. Dung cakes are highly flammable, and are often used as fuel in kitchens here. When the flames got big enough, some men began to approach it with small bundles of hay. They circled the fire, touching the hay to it so that it would catch, and then lifting it over their heads and smashing the flames out on the ground. Suresh and his wife explained that many villagers believe that the fate of the coming year is determined on Holi. Those with buffalos and cows perform the ritual to prevent their animals from getting sick over the next year.

Later, people started throwing coconuts into the fire, sending a geyser of sparks up each time a coconut hit. I didn’t quite understand the explanation for this act, but the sparks have some connection to the rain for the upcoming year. A group of village women had gathered, dressed in the red saris typical of the Koli Patel caste. They started singing wedding songs in honor of the young man who was now circling the fire, coconut and sword in hand. He eventually tossed his coconut into the fire as well.

The fire began to die down, and we headed back to the school around 9:30 at night. We passed another fire or two on the way. When we got back, I was telling some of the other teachers and a few students about the evening. One boy, Asvind, a very clever student in 7th grade, said that in his village only the Darbars (feudal landlord Kshatriya caste) are allowed to circle the fire. The right to dance around a pile of burning buffalo crap seems like such a silly little thing, but it represents social status and power. It's interesting to think about how caste dynamics extend into the minutia of village life here.