Amit Lakhotia enjoyed the ‘cheer haran’ but found it to be rather ‘pseud’.

Rang Barse, Rang Barse
Bheege har chunarwali rang barse.....

It is one of those festivals which you always want to celebrate in hostel. I would like to be at home on other festivals like Diwali and so on, but this is one day when I would make all kinda weird excuses at home to make it to the hostel. Believe me; you can best experience it only at a hostel. The youthful zest, raw enthusiasm and energy levels are just unbelievable.

It was an ossum (awesome) holi celebration here this Holi. The show began around 11 in morning and the guys started assembling outside the gals’ dorms (as expected). The cult community arranged for colours and for a change this time I played Holi with only gulal. This is one of those festivals the mention of which can alone drag out the most lethargic and lazy guys out of their rooms. The colours started getting splashed in air and the shouts of 'holi hai' started engulfing the environment.

Then the 'cheer-haran' program began. The guys started ripping apart T-shirts of other guys and in a brief span of time all of the guys were topless. The gals were enjoying the show and continuously giggling too. In fact whenever any new guy came, the gals used to point towards him and then there used to be a brutal assault on that guy's clothes. The T-shirt was ripped apart and the...

torn piece or whatever remained of the same was tossed away to a nearby tree. By the end of the session, the tree was royally covered with rags of all possible hues and colours.


Though I believe this is one of the 'pseud' holi celebrations which I had in my hostel life. The merry making in NSIT used to be real wild and savage. We used to dig a big pit in front of our hostel and used to fill it with water full of colours and tons of mud. Then we would catch hold of any clueless fellow seen around the hostel and used to dump him in that pit. When that guy used to emerge from the pit he used to be all black (no racial comments!!!!!). He used to be enshrouded in filthy mud and used to come out hurling all kinda abuses possible on miscreants. Five minutes later he would himself be an integral part of team searching for some more hapless fellows.

Here too gender discrimination would exist. While the guys were thrown around in muddy pits, the sporting gals were dumped in a fountain of clean water with slight dose of colours. I still remember, part of a contingent shouting (synonym for singing) all kinds of songs in front of gals hostel provoking gals to come out and play Holi... though it was just supposed to be a ritual and the gals used to take a lead over the guys in enjoying this festival....

The only thing which I missed today was 'bhaang'. I remember when I was small I was given the 'dose' of bhaang by one of my uncles. I could not remember what happened after. But it seems my family and other relatives had real good time seeing a kid rolling over and laughing like a hysterical person. I kept on speaking utter nonsense (which I can do these days usually even without dose). I did a lot of 'non-sensual activities which make me laugh over myself today and my cousins love to embarrass me whenever they can over the same incident.

In fact one of my friends at college got laddus made of bhaang during Holi and we really had a gala time after eating them. The after effects were simply bewildering. One of the guys started to dish out a career counseling lecture. Another one got damn senti and started blabbering out the reasons why his girlfriend ditched him a couple of days earlier. Some of the guys went berserk at those 'Uncle Chipps' packets present in the room and more than 15 of those packed were gobbled up in less than 20 minutes or so. Most of us did not go to college the next day as we were simply snoring away the entire day. It was a really an unforgettable moment.