Walking On The Rainbows: Holi Festival in Udaipur

We were up early and had breakfast on the roof. Tom was engrossed in his food; I sipped a chai and assessed the situation on the streets below. Sometime around 8am we ventured out of the sanctuary of our guesthouse.
Having experienced Holi on my previous visit to India I thought it’d be wise to get out early and break myself into the day before alcohol influenced behaviour too much.
Walking over the bridge from Hanuman Ghat into town proved to be like running a gauntlet. I’d been outside the guesthouse for less than one minute and had already been groped to a frightening standard!

In town the spirits were mainly good humoured. It was nothing short of beautiful to see so many people beaming with happiness. We wandered the streets for most of the morning exchanging Holi wishes and being painted in colour.

The busier the streets became the quicker our appearance transformed. We changed from blue, to pink, to orange, to silver, to a multi-coloured mess in a matter of minutes. Every few yards we were drenched with water poured from rooftops, creating multi-coloured puddles in our path.

Around noon the endless groping was wearing me down so the decision was made to go back to the guesthouse for some respite and chai. Walking back over the bridge was an experience that almost broke me. It was packed with streaming young men. The first of them wished me a Happy Holi then proceeded to wipe colour all over my eyes leaving me temporarily blind.

A little bit freaked out but painted a lovely pink.

It seemed to work. I was pulled free and “handed back” to Tom. He explained that, of course, he hadn’t left me to fend for myself. Apparently he’d been there for the duration and had been forcefully pulling men off me. We relaxed on the rooftop over a few chais before Tom dutifully went off on a mission to find something a bit stronger! An hour or so later whiskey and shisha had worked together to create an impressive illusion of bravery. Back on the streets, the advice of the lads in guesthouse was working; bitch slapping anyone with straying hands was a tactic that worked well for me!

We were pulled into a dancing crowd. Watching men pushing their crotches against Tom proved to be quite weird! When they did it to me feelings of weirdness were over shadowed by repulsion and the urge to vomit.

Sometime around 3pm the chaos was calming. We wandered back to our guesthouse for a technicoloured shower before venturing back out, through the carnage, on a never ending mission to find food. 90% of eating establishments were closed for the day. The other 10% were in uproar, being run by utterly inebriated staff many of whom seemed to find walking quite a challenge. The idea of them providing us nourishment seemed ridiculous! We eventually found some shacks selling street food. A fairly hysterical ten minutes were spent watching Tom set his mouth on fire with an unknown chili based snack. In the end bel phuri and gulab jambon stalls saved the day.