Red, green, yellow, pink – balloons of all colors. I remember playing Holi with my friends a few years ago with water balloons. I don’t really know why but I loved balloons so much. They just made me feel happy and tickled the kid inside me – that is, until yesterday.
It was 6:30 PM. I had met my school friends after ages. We were walking through the Kamla Nagar market, in Delhi University’s north campus. I was tired but I was extremely happy. It was a beautiful day.
Suddenly, a water balloon hit my head. It was so quick that I couldn’t really figure out where it had come from. My first thought was that maybe it was someone playing the usual Holi prank on me. How I wish it was just this!
I came back home and read one of my friend’s Instagram story. She had shared a post about similar incidents happening all around the city. But that wasn’t all. Gangs of men were actually throwing semen mixed with water at girls. It came as a huge blow to me. And even if it wasn’t that, is “bura na maano, Holi hai (don’t mind, it’s Holi)” an apt excuse to get away with drenching a random girl with water on a street?
I was disgusted and upset. For the past 18 years, I have had this great privilege of living in a place where people were good and they didn’t throw things at others. Men did not harass women, or at least were scared to do so. A real luxury.
But I was in Delhi, the national capital. My bad. I am sad, angry and upset. But I know I am not the only one. It’s almost normal to people now because it’s the new Holi ‘trend’.
Men surprise me. How can they stoop to such low levels? I just hope that people understand at least now why we stand for feminism. Oh well, happy Holi. I just hope you don’t have a Holi similar to mine.