What is the holiday of holy? Where and when is it celebrated? How did the holiday come to be? What are the traditions that take place? What foods and drinks are popular during holy? We'll answer these questions and more in today's episode on the Holiday of Holy. Welcome to Wiser World, a podcast for busy people who need a refresher on all things world.
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If you've ever seen pictures of people throwing colored chalk in the air and wondered what was going on, today's episode is for you. Today we're talking about the Holiday of Holy, and I'm very excited to share this really joyful celebration with you. Recently I've made...
episodes on holidays that take place at the end of winter or like the beginning of spring. And this is another one of those. I love how almost every culture has some kind of tradition that happens during this time. In many Asian countries, it's or New Year. In many European, South American, Caribbean nations, it's carnival. And in India, that holiday is holy. It just goes to show that we're all humans and we all love the idea of winter being over.
And we all want to celebrate that. We just do it in different ways. And so I just love that shared humanity. And Holi is the holiday in India that celebrates this. So let's talk about it. originated in India. It is at least over 1600 years old. Some say it's even older than that.
And the timing of Holi has to do with the moon cycles. So the dates change a little every year, but it's almost always celebrated in March during the seasonal change between winter and spring. And in this year, I'm recording in 2023. It will be celebrated on March 7th or 8th, depending on where you live.
And holy is a Hindu holiday, Hinduism being the most popular religion in India. Hinduism as a religion is extremely old, dating back to over 4,000 years ago. Hinduism is a polytheistic religion, meaning They have many gods, and much of the religion is passed through ancient books that contain stories about the gods. And not all people who celebrate holy in India
are Hindu. It's not uncommon for Muslims or people of other religions in India to celebrate as a sign of goodwill and coming together as a community. So even though it's religious by nature, it's celebrated in mostly or... non-religious ways in some parts of India. Holi usually lasts two days, and it's celebrated more publicly in the north part of India than in the south. In the north, most people get the day off, and Holi is a bigger religious deal.
In the South, it's usually an optional holiday, more secular, but many do celebrate it. Holy is also celebrated around the world, primarily in communities where there's a large Indian population or South Asian population. So let's talk about how Holi began. There are many ancient stories in Hindu literature for how the holiday of holy originated, but one story that seems to be the most popular is the story of an evil king who wanted everyone to worship him.
But his son, Prahlada, would not. Instead of worshipping his dad, Prahlada worshipped the Lord Vishnu instead, which is the Hindu god of preservation and protection. And so this angry king plots to kill his son, trying all kinds of tactics like having his son trampled by an elephant or bit by poisonous snakes. But his son doesn't die. And the evil king decides to plot with his sister. named Holika, to kill this son, Prahlada.
And Holika, the aunt, has a special shawl that made her immune to fire. And so she tricks Prahlada, the son, to sit on a fire that is used to burn bodies. It's called a pyre. convinces him to sit on this fire with her, but the plan fails and the special shawl she has flies away and she's burned. while Vishnu, the god Vishnu, protects Prahlada, and he walks away just fine. So the motto of this story is that good always conquers evil, and Holika, the evil aunt, she's burned on this funeral pyre.
So like I said, celebrating holy differs greatly from place to place in India. The cities are going to look different than the rural villages, and the north and the south of India will also be different from each other, different cultural differences. So keep that in mind. just going to give a general overview. But as for the general holiday of Holi, on the first night of Holi, which is called Choti Holi or Little Holi,
Communities often gather together and they light fires or pyres to show that good conquers evil. Sometimes this is done as one big village altogether, one fire. But in some areas where people aren't gelling together, they have started to gather together in their own.
homes and celebrate with individual fires. Sometimes they'll throw wood or twigs or popcorn or chickpeas or coconut or grains into the fire. And this signifies the burning of evil spirits and is often called holy kadahan. And people often... and gather around the fire to sing and dance about overcoming negativity and letting go of the evil of the last year. Some Hindus will gather the ashes of this pyre and will purify themselves by smearing the ashes on themselves.
Then the next day, which is the day of holy, generally people gather together in their homes for like a small prayer called a puja. And then the celebration begins and people of all ages go into the streets, usually wearing white. and people cover each other in brightly colored paint or chalk, gulal.
usually in bright colors that symbolize spring and love and new birth and new beginnings. And back in the day, this chalk and these paints were made from flowers and herbs. Now they're mostly synthetic. People will smear paint.
paint on their faces and on other people. It's also really common to toss colored water or punny at each other. People will use water guns or pichkari and even like balloons, water balloons that are filled with colored water and they'll throw them down on the streets and from the rooftop and this is why holy is often called the festival of colors it's this holiday it's like a riot of color the whole thing is just like bright color chalk water everywhere.
My husband works with a lot of people who live in India, and I asked them about this. I wondered if these celebrations were planned by the city or organized in any kind of way, and they responded that it's actually quite spontaneous. It's not like it's planned.
It's like a neighborhood party where everyone goes out and throws color at each other. And there's often also dancing to Bollywood music. So I thought that was really fun. And what is the story behind the chalks and the paint? I looked into this. a little bit. And the story goes that Lord Krishna, a different Hindu god who has dark blue skin,
was apparently a mischievous child and quite the prankster. And he had this beautiful friend of his named Radha who had very fair skin. And Krishna wanted to know why he was dark-skinned and Radha was fair. So his mom... playfully suggested that if you smear Rada in paint...
He could change her face to be any color that he wanted. So that's what Lord Krishna did. And then the tradition was born that you throw color on your loved ones. So there's multiple Hindu gods involved in this celebration of holy, and I'm sure it's evolved over the...
thousand plus years that it's been around, but I thought that was really fun. One of the things that I personally think can be quite beautiful about Holi is that in some communities, it can be used to bring people together of all ages and genders and classes.
And traditionally in India, you know, a hundred plus years ago and further, men and women were not allowed to mingle together in the streets. But holy was the celebration where in some areas they could. And additionally, in some areas of India. even today, there's this ancient class system called caste, and it's still very prevalent where people are ranked and assigned classes from birth. And I'll talk more about this in upcoming 101 episodes on India. I'm going to do those this year.
But I like the idea that holy can sometimes be a time when all of the different classes or castes in India are together and celebrating as a community, and that this riot of color can become something of an equalizer, especially... among children and young people. Sadly, in some areas of India, it isn't that, and the lowest caste doesn't get the day off.
Sometimes it can be hard on women in some certain parts of India, especially in rural areas. Sometimes Holi can be known as a place where the women really participate, but the men are known to drink heavily and harass women.
But I love the idea that the hope that holy can be a positive experience for a lot of people. And if a community chooses for it to include everybody, I think it can be really beautiful. I also love learning that for elderly people, they often will use... wholly as a time to donate clothes and food to the underprivileged castes, donating wheat and spices in particular.
During holy, Hindu temples are decorated with bright colors, and the Hindu gods, there are many of them, they can be decorated with jewels and clothes in the temple. And with this theme of harmony and new beginnings, holy encourages people to forgive and forget. pay off old debts, renew broken relationships, make new friends. But the most important theme of it all is definitely that good will ultimately prevail against evil.
Now, later on in the day after this riot of color, families will usually gather together for a meal. And it's also common to give away treats to family and friends. So different foods are popular in different regions of India, but some of the most... popular holy foods are gujia, and this is a pastry that's shaped in a crescent shape and is filled usually with nuts or fruits or chocolate, some kinds of fillings, and then it's deep fried in ghee.
Ghee is a clarified butter. And they almost look like small empanadas to me. They look so delicious. Another popular food is dahi bale. It's a soft lentil fritter that's dipped in yogurt sauce. potty rice. Some others make something called puran poli. This is a sweet flatbread with a lentil or dhal filling that's usually sweetened with sugar and cardamom and nutmeg, and it's often served the morning of holy. After the pyre has been burned.
Lastly, a drink called Tandai is universally popular during Holi. It is usually made with milk, sugar, saffron or cardamom, rose water, black pepper, and the key ingredient is a Tandai paste. which is usually made up of ground almonds or cashews, poppy seeds, fennel seeds, melon seeds. So it has this nutty, milky taste with lots of aromatics, and it's meant to cool and refresh the body.
at every holy party. Honestly, I looked into holy food for a long time because I'll admit I am a total foodie and everything looked delicious and the differences of food from family to family had a huge range, but these These ones that I've talked about did seem to be the most popular across most parts of India.
And that is holy in a nutshell for you. I had such a great time researching this holiday and talking about it. It has so many beautiful aspects to it, not to mention that the pictures are gorgeous because of all of this color. And I really love that. And I'm especially grateful to my husband's friend. I hope that this episode gives us some background content.
context so that we can appreciate and respect the Hindu culture and their traditions. And in the next few weeks, I have more holidays to talk about. I promise I'm not always going to talk about holidays, but spring is full of them, and I'm really excited for what's coming up in the next month. or two. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening and sharing and let's go make the world a little wiser.
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