Hate the player, not the game

A recent Holi Ad drew flak but correctly highlights the lack of female consent associated with such celebrations

- SHUTAPA PAUL

One of the most impactful Bollywood scenes for me was the Holi one in the 90s' film, 'Damini. The Meenakshi Sheshadri and Sunny Deol starrer with its depiction of a heinous gangrape of the maid orchestrated by drunken, debauched upper class men, played on my impressionable mind for years later. I never did care for the raucous celebration associated with Holi; an excuse for tomfoolery and frankly, bad behaviour. A socially approved reason to misbehave with hapless passers-by while forcibly applying or waterbombing colour onto unwilling participants. Of course, there is the beautiful experience of Vrindavan with colour thrown in the air descending like powder showers on the skin.

Growing up though the only reference I had of Holi were marauding groups of men with blackened faces or worse, silver colours. We'd call them monkey colours, with no compliments to the actual animal.

The persistent feeling from the festival was of force and coercion.