Of Holi marked with Halloween masks & Patna daughters

As Patna recovers from the dual celebration of the festival of colours and the colourful performance of Team India at Perth, women’s rights enthusiasts are celebrating International Women’s Day with a home screening of ‘banned’ documentary ‘India’s Daughter’, daringly downloaded from youtube before the Draconian hand of the Indian Big Brother yanked it off!
“There’s nothing offensive in the film.In fact it brought tears to our eyes; it shows how precious a daughter is. After the match, our whole family watched India’s Daughter and we couldn’t figure out why so much fuss was being made about it. If certain chaps are so concerned about Indian culture, they should tell us why they are silent while China is turning Holi into Halloween? That’s definitely scarier for women than India’s Daughter!” a perky young thing said.
Miss PYT has a point, and more. Holi is known to be a festival of love and brotherhood. On another level, it’s a festival that announces the colours of the coming summer. “We have these images of Radha and Krishna playing with colours in Vrindavan, but we certainly don’t have Krishna wearing a ‘bhoot’ mask!” says 26-year-old Chandan, a social activist who admits he is very confused about the scary masks sold along with water-guns in the pop-up shops that mushroom during every festival.
Holi is also believed to be a reminder of the sacrifice of Kamdev, the Hindu God of love, whom Shiva burned to cinders with his third eye. One small link that you can connect to demons and Holi is that the red powder would originally signify the blood of demons that Lord Krishna killed. Another way of connecting this up is that even though Kamdev was burned to toast, Shiva did fall for Parvati right after and Kartikeya was born who in turn slaughtered a whole lot of demons, say apologists.
“The masks and wigs are useful because they protect the face from colour,” says 16-year- old Tushar, “but my mum won’t let me buy a demon mask. Who wants to wear a Spiderman mask at my age?”
Tushar’s elder sister begs to differ. “Boys like to wear these horrible masks and scare everyone. But I have a deep feeling of insecurity. Think of the way rape and molestation is being reported everywhere. Think of a pervert in one of those Halloween masks. Not many women in Patna would be brave enough to have a masked man barge into her courtyard on the pretext of Holi!” she says.
“We have become a colony of sorts of China. ‘Abir’, water-guns, water balloons with pre-loaded colour – all made in China are available at your neighbourhood street store. So what if we can also add clown wigs and a few scary masks? If La Tomatina can become a Holi ritual for the affluent, why can’t Halloween Holi masks be worn by the ordinary man?” quipped a middle-aged colleague.
And somewhere in the midst of this conversation, one sees a frame from ‘India’s Daughter’, a leery-faced lawyer saying “a woman is a flower, man is hard, like a thorn… in our society there is no place for a woman…”