I woke up a 6 am without an alarm and it was apparent that I was not going to fall back to sleep, therefore it was time to explore the hotel (this is code for "find the gym"). The hotel was beautiful in the light and the gym did not disappoint. It felt absolutely great to work out after the two full days of travel.
At the gym, I met two women. One was from Charlotte and the other was from DC. They had the same goal as I did for the day which was make it to a Holi party. They had heard the same things that I had: much of Holi was extremely unsafe for women and the expat parties were "meh". We exchanged numbers and said we would keep in touch with what we found to do.
Holi is a major holiday in India. People get the day off of work and in Delhi whole sections of the city and most businesses are closed. Holi signifies the beginning of spring and is associated with the full moon. It is known as the "festival of colors" or the "festival of love". It represents the triumph of good over evil. It is also said to be a day that many play, laugh, forgive, and repair relationships. This is done via colored powder by itself, water guns, water balloons and good old fashion smearing color on people's faces. One of the legends of Holi in sum is of a King who was not a nice guy that demanded everyone worship him. His son disagreed with this which angered his father. He was punished and then tricked by his evil aunt, Holika, to sit on a pyre with her. She wore a cloak that made her immune to fire and as the fire raged the cloak flew off of her on to him. The king was then killed by Vishnu (a Hindu god who had turned himself into half man/half lion) via evisceration. The love legend is a little more pleasant and has to do with Krishna (a Hindu god) wanting to change his skin color (it was blue) to be loved by Radha (a fair-skinned beauty). Instead he colored Radha's face with any color he wanted and they fell in love (cue feminist thoughts about why she needs to be colored? Why didn't they just unblue him? Gaaahhhhhhh).
The newspapers this morning were filled with information on Holi which were mostly precautions. They also seemed very partial to staying inside or with close family and friends. They warned of the reactions from the various dyes: purple - asthma, black - renal failure, green- eye puffiness, red- vision loss, disorientation, silver- highly corrosive (eek). One paper had instructions on how to make natural (safe) colors.
At breakfast we found out our Holi plans were not happening because the place we had planned to go was closed. My friends from the gym went to a nearby party that was suggested and nothing was really happening. People were playing Holi at the hotel which turned adorable with a 4ish year-old boy approaching at me and Nadia with a ghostbusters-esque serious water gun saying in a very adorable voice "Happy Holi!"
We were going to venture out with one of Nadia's friends and either meet her somewhere or have her come to the hotel. We booked an Uber and were on our way kind of. Our driver wasn't really into direct routes and he definitely stopped on the side of the road and asked us if we wanted to cross 8 lanes of traffic and jump a 3-4 foot concrete median thus vaulting ourselves into the oncoming traffic. No. That's ok. So we looped around only to find our destination was closed. Back to the hotel we went settling to go visit the sister hotel which was connected and have tea.
Reshma arrived and off we went to show me Delhi and go to the Jama Masjid. We went by India Gate where a large group of people were still playing colors (usually this is done in the early morning and is over by afternoon) and others were washing themselves in the pool beside the Gate. I had realized earlier in the day I didn't need to play (it wasn't worth the risk of being hurt, but I did really want to see the holiday as it was supposed to be. Our tour through Delhi provided me with that.). Nadia and Reshma kept telling me Delhi was empty which I guess was true, but with over 18.6 million people as of 2016 (the 5th most populous city in the world) empty is still pretty impressive.
In the end my friend's description of Holi as The Color Run only with alcohol, drugs including bhang (a marijuana drink), sexual assault and permanent colors may sound a bit harsh but is not unfounded. In the streets I only saw boys and men playing colors. There has to be a reason for that.
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