Happy Holi

Celebrating the Festival of Colours in the Braj region of India is like doing St. Patty's in Ireland, it is the place to experience the merry madness that is Holi. Being Lord Krishna's childhood playground, The smallish villages and towns in Braj are some of the most dedicated and authentic places to experience the festive holiday.

According to legend, the young Lord Krishna spent his mischievous childhood years playing with the village girls and chasing them through town throwing coloured powder. Every year, to celebrate the coming of spring and a new season of harvest, this tale is reenacted across the country on the last full moon day of the lunar month. In the Braj region however, the festival is celebrated for an entire week before the big day. I arriving for the finale in the town of Mathura three days before Holi day.

After two months of anticipation, the supposed birthplace of Krishna, was a bit of a disappointment. The small town was foggy with dust, blaring with traffic and almost completely commercialized. We made it our mission to stock up on colour dust and water guns before the madness began. The task of collecting Holi ammunition was easily accomplished since specialized vendors were littered all over the busy streets. Balloons for making colour grenades, water-activated colour powders, coloured foam sprays, and even home-made new-years-eve-esque hats were available for purchase all over the place.

I spotted a couple of young men who were already stained from head to toe with pink and purple. Their stained faces made the whites of their eyes and grinning teeth pop in a way that was almost inhuman. I got a little nervous as recollections of Internet articles about Holi's unholy business rolled into mind. I had read testimonies ranging from random inappropriate groping of foreign women, to full-out violent attacks in the massive crowds. I tried not to think too much about these extreme cases and thanked my lucky stars to have hooked up with a travel partner on IndiaMike for the trip.

The mayhem doesn't seem to have started yet in the town of Mathura, but we were cautious of potential spontaneous colour play on the streets. As advised by several experienced Holi veterans, we prepared by changing into our least favourite clothes and cracked open some 100% pure coconut oil to lather over our skin. I thought perhaps we might have been over-preparing for a battle that probably won't even take place, but I really didn't know what to expect.

After setting out, we cautiously wandered around town, nervously looking behind our backs for hidden danger. Having walked through the downtown area completely unscathed, I began to relax. By the time we came to the Yamona River and shuffled across the simple steel railway bridge bringing us to the park-like landscape opposite the city, I completely forgot about Holi.

From across the narrow body of water, the line of messily arranged temples made Mathura looked like a mini Varanasi. Except the water was clean enough to contemplate a handwash and the boatmen were lazy enough to leave you alone. The kids were adorable and JC had Polaroids for them to keep. We walked all the way up the shore, which was dotted with loudspeakers on stilts, blaring nazzally religious songs for the whole city to hear. We didn't know at the time, but that was going to be the most peaceful hour of the rest of our trip.

On the way back to the city, the iron bridge deck had become congested with locals, who were fighting for some camera love. The path was just wide enough for a one to comfortably walk, or two to awkwardly squeeze past, involving some inevitable body contact. This made the usual polite getaway strategy impossible to implement, and we ended up clogging the narrow passage with no choice but to fulfill every request for attention that came our way.

By the time we made it back across the river, our tour of Mathura was nearing its end. Since there was no vacancy in the whole city because of Holi, we went for a quick walk through the small market area, along the temple-lined shore and ended our 6-hour visit. I was not expecting such a serene kickoff to my wild Holi weekend and was eager to go straight to Vrindavan, where I was told the biggest celebration in Braj, and supposedly all of India, was set to start the next day.

So we set off for Vrindavan behind the driving wheel of quite an adventurous rickshaw driver. This man was a lot more ballsy than your average reckless lane-changing brother, he decided to take some interesting shortcuts through rocky dirt roads and across shallow streams (or maybe flowing sewage?). We had to hop off and help push the car a few times to unwedge its tiny wheels from the rugged landscape. After a draining 30 minutes on the bumpy road, we finally entered the city in a half-conscious daze.

Suddenly, the sound of children laughing woke me from my sleepy state and before I realized these kids were actually chasing our rickshaw, I was shot in the face with a freezing blast of blue water. The gritty colour-infused water tasted kind of like the ocean. As I was busy rubbing colour out of my eyes out the side of the car, JC was getting powdered left and right. All we could do was hold our hands up in surrender and wait til the army of kids ran out of ammunition. I opened my eyes a little and laughed at the absolute saturated state of our clothes and bags; looking down I found a huge pile of Barbie pink powder on my lap! Our rickshaw driver, who also got a few good shots, looked back at us and just laughed while cheering “Happy Holi!” JC and I cheered back. We spent the rest of the ride looking left, right and behind for potential attacks, with loaded handfuls of our previously purchased coloured powder, not quite ready for battle. Obviously, we would have to buy a lot more to last the next two days.

It seemed like forever before we neared the city centre, which was under heavy road construction, forcing us to continue by foot. I asked around for the Vrinda Kunja, an ashram referred by a CouchSurfing friend Gopal, who had been learning and living in India for several years. Eventually, we reached the gates of the ashram which was discretely tucked in the labyrinthian old city. An elderly couple dressed in simple cotton sari and dhoti was waiting for us at the door and cheered “Happy Holi” when they saw us approach in full colour from head to toe. We were warmly welcomed into the courtyard garden where Gopal and a group of smiling friends were sitting on the temple porch. They were from all over the place and of different ages, some had been studying the Krishna Consciousness for years and others who were just passing through; all of them were already stained with Holi.

After we cleaned ourselves up a bit and had some lunch on the marble floor of the temple, we joined the rest of the Kunja gang out on the porch. The courtyard was home to a couple families of monkeys; they had a freakishly human-like demeanor and a suspicious gaze that seemed to put me on edge. In fact, these guys were trained professionals at snatching plastic bags right out of you grasp and ripping your glasses right off your nose. One of the big guys had his eye on JC's glasses that day, before anyone even noticed, he sprinted over and lept onto his back to get it. I think it was my shriek that startled the vicious thieve and ended up saving JC's Gucci's.

After that short episode, Gopal took us to Shri Banke Bihari Mandir. We rode there on some old bikes through the busy winding streets and came to the giant white temple a few minutes after it opened for the evening mass/Holi party. The steps up to the temple podium were cluttered with flattened garlands and dusty sandals. The marble floor was glazed with the homogenized reddish brown paste of fallen coloured powder. There were hundreds of people flooding into the temple doors, cheering and tossing handfuls of colour into the air. Bright orange and red rained down on our heads and shoulders.

A stout old lady in the crowd held both her hands out towards me and wiped two handfuls of colour on me from the apples of my cheeks to my chin, rubbing it in as if she was applying exfoliant on my face . After that, she tightly embraced me with her round little body and said “Happy Holi” in my ear. With that, she smiled and waddled on laughing with her family.

I stood and watched all the happy faces around me: fathers and mothers carrying their babies, groups of young boys, singing elderly men and women and loads of kids slicing through. I slowly moved along with the mass towards the open temple doors where I could hear roaring cheers coming from within. Just as I was about to step in, a firm hand clasped my arm and yanked me out of the mob. I looked up at the purple face of a middle-aged man, who angrily reminded me to take off my shoes before entering. I smiled apologetically and shuffled to the shoe check where I found Gopal and JC waiting for me. We looked at eachother's rainbow coloured faces and burst into laughter.

Meanwhile, a gang of young men dressed in matching white pajamas and caps took notice of us and discretely tossed about 7 bags full of colour on us! While we were all shedding, spitting, and snotting green, our offenders chuckled their way into the temple. When I finally got out senses back, I charged in after the boys in white ready for revenge. But before we could even take two steps, we were halted at the gates by a grinning guard and his buddies. He was holding a super soaker. I reacted quickly and held up my my hands in mercy, “no, no, no! Camera!” I showed it to them naively hoping we'd escape unscathed. Instead, one of the men took my camera and pointed it back at our faces, while the rest of them had their way with us.

After finally making it to the edge of the main temple space, we were confronted with a completely different world. Below us, thunderous waves of chanting and singing filled the voluminous double-storey space. Standing at the threshold, I was immediately taken by the colour and energy inside, but also a little frightened by the visceral state of what felt like a giant raging moshpit in front of the alter. Sprays and hits of water and powder were coming from all directions as I descended the wooden steps. Gopal dived in before us with his taped-up monster of a camera while I cautiously stepped down onto the slippery marble floor of the pit.

At first, I watched with fascination from the periphery. The throbbing crowd of men, looked like zombies, with their hooded eyes and outstretched arms, definitely high or drunk or both, and cheering in perfect unison: “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna!”. A smoky cloud of colour hovered over them like steam billowing over a pot of hot water. The air was so thick that I could hardly breathe at first. The room was filled with the sandy fog of colour, roaring songs of devotion, and the heat and sweat of hundreds of raving bodies.

Being the only obvious foreigners in the room, JC and I were quickly dragged into the heart of the crowd. After that, my senses were completely overwhelmed. As if Tommy Lee had just tossed his drum sticks into the audience at an 80's concert, the crowd boiled abruptly around me when a few men on stage began to toss offerings into the pit of possessed worshipers. An older woman, with her sari soaked in pink and purple, slowly inched her way into the mass and pushed the boys around her aside until there was enough space to descend to her knees, and lay her forehead on the floor. Miraculously, she stayed in this position for what seemed like an eternity to me, completely unaffected by her surroundings. I let my body relax too and gave into the mass.

When we went to leave the temple ten minutes, an hour, or three hours later, the sky was getting dark. Thinking the night had come to an end, we lept out of the main doors to find Holi still raging in every corner of the city! The singing, the dancing, the hugging, the laughing and of course, the constant unexpected colouring was going on outside of the temple, in the congested streets, and followed us all the way back to the Ashram.

During all of this, we had failed to find the alley in which we locked our bikes, failed to find our friend Gopal, and failed to get a fair price for a bicycle rickshaw. Fortunately, we were just in time for dinner when we got back. Our buddy came back as we finished washing and drying the plates, in even worse shape than we were, and told us this was just the beginning.

Bhopali Rap-up

Today, I will be saying goodbye to the modestly pleasant city of Bhopal. It was not even considered as a destination when I was planning my visit to India, but I can surely say that I could not have ended up in a more livable place. Bhopal and the state of Mahdya Pradesh has shown me an India that is modern, cultured and peaceful. Beyond these broad descriptions, I will really miss the little things:

… Fantasy Bakery and Rocky Tailors, located right across from each other in buzzing Newmarket. I've had some sweet times sampling the tantalizing treats at Fantasy and some delicious complimentary chai while observing the fine workmanship of Rocky's tailoring on his 30 year-old Singers.

... Buying loads of fresh guavas from the market.

… The cluttered narrow lanes of Old Bhopal, where the city's mishmash of historical influences from the French, Islamics, and Mughals collide with the organic growth of its private residences. It is where I get my super quality fabrics, super sweet lassi and super sized portions of fried foods for super affordable rates.

… Walks along Lakeside Drive by the biggest and cleanest man-made lake in India. This is where everyone hangs out at all times of the day. Boat rides, street snacks, terraced patios with chocolaty desserts: awesome times.

… Spontaneous dance routines to local Bhopali rap and late night mendhi with fun-loving friends.

… Hanging out with the guys who do all the hard work in the office.

… Beef Biryani in a bag! It's no steak mind you, but after 2 months of vegetables and chicken, this was a monstrous discovery.

… Last but not least, FilFora, where I repeatedly go to get the best Kebabs and sweet porridge in India, including tonight! I will be spending my last Bhopali meal at this fine establishment.

From there, I'll catch a 22:05 train to Mathura and Vrindavan, where I will be playing Holi, like this!

Then, I will slowly make my way to Delhi airport stopping in a few cities along the way. The trip itinerary for the next 11 days before Shanghai is still up in the air, as something unexpected in bound to happen along the way. I will keep you all posted!

Varanasi Kimchi

The !ncredible thing about India for me, and I'm sure many others, is its diversity. Far beyond Canada's claim to fame as the “Big Melting Pot”, the diversity I perceive here is made of extreme contrasts and unpredictable harmonies. It's not hard to find irony and paradoxes at every turn, and nothing is out of context. Varanasi for that matter, was no exception.

The Mark Twain quote in my Rough Guide described the river-side city as “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together” (about 3000 years old). When I first emerged from the city station, Varanasi looked just like another Indian city: a sea of rickshaws and swarms of people. The only difference was, there was a whole lot of foreigners mixed in crowd. Especially Koreans, two of whom I befriended on the train.


Along with my new mates, I embarked on my very first bicycle rickshaw ride through the commercial roads of new city. Our driver was a very old man, and since there was hardly ever an opportunity to build up good momentum, he had to dismount the bike a few times and pull us through on his feet. Ironically, the seemingly weak fellow was barking ferociously at every person and vehicle within 5 meters of our rickshaw. I had an evil thought that he might have been exaggerating his weaknesses to win our sympathy and therefore some extra rupees. Regardless, we gave him a big tip when he dropped us off, a kilometer from the River Ganges.

During the kilometer walk to the one of the holiest places in India (regarded by the major religions in India), we were forced to aggressively weave through the overwhelming car, bike and pedestrian traffic while simultaneously dodging chai-wallas, hotel-wallas, boat-wallas, and every other possible sales-saavy walla you can think of. We probably didn't take the shortest way, but since all paths from the main road in Old City lead to the river, we got there eventually.

At the end of a narrow and muddy market lane, we came to the endless stretch of ghats, stepping down into the mucky waters of “Mother Ganga”. We were at the main ghat called Dashaswamedth Ghat where a wedding was going on at the top of the steps. Just a few levels down to the river, there was a huddle of young boys shaking their hips and wrists to a ghetto blaster. Faintly dotting the hazy river in the background, were the famous wooden boats of Varanasi, each of them carrying its maximum capacity's worth of camera-happy tourists. We stopped for a second to choose a direction in which to continue and four eager boatmen took the opportunity to pounce! One of them was actually yapping something at us in Korean! We batted them away like money-sucking mosquito, and headed south in search of a quiet guesthouse away from all the action.

With some incessant bargaining from me and two defeated rounds of arm wrestling with my buddy Soon, Mr. Yadav at the Leela Guesthouse gave us his best suite for half price! It came with a view too.





At 5pm sharp, the hotel-arranged boatman promptly arrived for our very own touristy sunset river ride.



The 2-hour Varanasi experience by water was quite the package. It included twenty Shiva temples, five trespasses by sneaky offering-wallas, three garbage-dumpings, one poo-dumping, two burning ghats with four scorched corpses, hundreds of tourists, thousands of worshipers, and about a billion mosquito.

The big event of the evening (well, every evening) was the lengthy Puja ceremony which took place at the main ghat, transforming it into a stage. The ritualistic performance took place on platforms at the foot of the steps while the worshipers watched from the steps and us tourists watched from boats in the water. By the time the sky turned dark, all the individual details faded away and there was only the sounds, smells and lights.

From our drop off point, we then ventured out to find Raga Cafe, a restaurant praised in Jay's guidebook. It turned out this place was tucked deep in the the pitch-black, labyrinth of the Old City. My cellphone flashlight revealed just the edges of things: a garbage pile, some steps, piles of dung, and the odd cow. This was the epitome of rape-alley, not restaurant-lane. Just before we gave up on the whole thing, a white beam appeared around the corner belonging to fellow flash-light holders. They came close and suddenly burst into a stream of, how did I guess, Korean. I stood and watched as Jay and Soon leaped into an enthusiastic conversation with them. A pointing hand from one signified that they knew the whereabouts of the restaurant. In fact, they'd just come from Raga and it was just around the corner!

Words could not describe how amazed I was when we climbed up into the tiny Korean-owned third-storey restaurant. There were cutesy cartoons on the posters, menus scribbled in bubbly letters and the smell of pickled cabbage filled the room. With the exception of the Korean-speaking Indian waiter, I felt like I was transported back to Markham!

The next morning, I awoke to the banging sounds of laundry at 5am and reluctantly got up for the must-see sunrise. The ghats at this hour were calm and smelled of stale urine. The stray dogs were still half-asleep but the boatmen were ready for business.

Walking slowly in front of me, was a group of Indians heading towards the main ghat with bags of offerings slung across their back. I followed them and came to the Dashaswamedth Ghat for the third time since I arrived and it has once again transformed, this time into the sacred spot where timeless religious rituals unfold every single morning. I stood watching from a small stone slab at the edge of the water, all the while robotically refuting offers for a boat ride.

Bathing in the waters of the River Ganges is said to cleanse one's sins and it was obvious that the bathers wholehearted believed that. Despite the spewing sewage pipes, rotting garbage and tourist flashes, men and women of all ages seemed to pour in from all corners of the city to purify their just-wakened naked bodies in the brown holy water. It was as if they were locked in the past, or possessed, while the rest of the city churned around them.

Unlike the worshipers, I wasn't able to resist being distracted by my surroundings. There were clusters of women and families yapping and changing, a small film crew setting up their equipment to my left, and holy stalls set up with smiling priests sitting inside. One called out and lured me into his small temporary temple. Before I knew it, he was staining my forehead with a sloppy bindi, threw some rice on it and started singing. I quickly told him that I did not have any money started to get up. He insisted that I could juts give from my heart any amount I wanted and locked me down for a makeshift-prayer. I giggled through the messy improvisation and left 10 rupees in on his silver plate when he finished. Suddenly, the smile on the priest disappeared and he began to roar at me asking for American dollars, threatening the future health and happiness of my family! Ignoring his ridiculous bickering, I left the main ghat feeling furious.

I ventured back to Old City for something sweet to lighten my spirits and found the place completely resurrected from our search for Raga Cafe the evening prior. In daylight, this part of town was full of interesting details. It was inevitable for the visitor to get lost wandering the tight corridors that sliced through the ultra dense blocks of shops, homes, and hidden temples; stepping in fresh piles of cow dung was positively unavoidable.

Near the burning ghats, shops primarily sold bundles of fire wood and flower garlands of marigold and rose pedals. I came across one shop that specialized in corpse ornamentation; displayed out front was a poster portfolio of their best work. Unlike the rest of old city, these vendors were almost always open because there would be dead bodies burning 24/7. And since crossing over in Varanasi is like taking the VIP entrance to the heavens, business was always good for livelihoods linked to the death ceremonies, especially when the burning ghat is also a major attraction on the tourist route. It was all very twisted but intriguing. I took a few close-up peeks into the fire that morning, it was like catching a glimpse of another world, a movie or a dream, but a little too vivid.

I met with Jay and Soon later that day and we took a bicycle rickshaw (with a strong young driver this time) to the picturesque and surprisingly quiet campus of the Benares (same as Varanasi) Hindu University, which happened to be one of the best colleges in the country I was told. The 3-km semi-circular campus, with its wide curving roads and impressive facilities, radiated from the New Vishwanatha Temple, where people from all over the city, as well as the students of the school, gathered for their daily rituals. Unlike the hundreds of filthy archaic temples in the main city area, I did not squirm like a girl when I walked in on my bare feet.







After we left the campus, there was just enough time left for a scrumptious and robust lunch at the lovely Phulwar Restaurant and Sami Cafe.

We took a beautiful walk along the river before I had to check out of the guesthouse and catch the train back to Bhopal. And by that time, all the laundry that had been earlier scrubbed, bashed, and rinsed in the river was hung up and laid out for drying under the beaming sun. Oversized pajamas, rough-edged bed linens, and sparkling silks carpeted the city's riverside in a quilt of colour and texture. Young boys were playing cricket and flying kites, the boatmen were all out on the water, lazy cows were loitering the steps by Leela's, and I said goodbye to Jay and Soon.











This was my last impression of Varanasi after a 24-hour stay. Spirituality and necessity, life and death, old and new; this city simultaneously embodied an endless collection of opposing ideas. It was atrocious and beautiful, exploited and sacred, and constantly surprising. And that's just another Indian city for ya.

The train left Varanasi at sunset, with the gorgeous rural landscape slowly rolling into view, and Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" softly playing through my headphones as the closing soundtrack.

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