Festival · 2094
The portal of Festivals
Turn a card. Answer all three rightly and this portal is sealed in your sky. New riddles every morning.
May the fire tonight burn what is bitter in you, and may tomorrow's colours find you lighter, kinder and unafraid.
क्षिप्रं भवति धर्मात्मा शश्वच्छान्तिं निगच्छति कौन्तेय प्रतिजानीहि न मे भक्तः प्रणश्यति
kṣipraṁ bhavati dharmātmā śaśvac chāntiṁ nigacchati / kaunteya pratijānīhi na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati
Its meaning
Quickly that person becomes righteous and attains lasting peace. Declare it firmly, son of Kunti: My devotee never perishes.
Bhagavad Gita 9.31
When, for Kolkata
1 March 2094
Shukla Chaturdashi · until 10:49 AM
Kept on the day its tithi runs at dusk (pradosh).
Do
Sit quietly with the heart, name one resentment you have been feeding, write it down and give it to the fire.
Leave aside
Colours thrown on someone who did not want them. Holi is play, and play is consent.
Add your name. The card goes as a picture they can read and keep, and the link with it opens as your wish, with the timing for their own city, the verse, and how to keep the day.
Wishing you a blessed Holika Dahan · Holi
Every festival on its right day for Kolkata, inside your phone's own calendar, each one opening its page here. It renews itself every year. No account needed.
For Outlook or any other calendar, add the copied link as a calendar from the internet. For another city, open this page for that city first.
A gentle reminder three days before each festival and on its morning, with its timing for your city.
The full Moon of Phalguna, the last full Moon before the new year, as winter gives way; the fire is lit under it at dusk.
The fire the night before the colour. Holika burns and the child does not — the tradition puts the destruction of malice before the celebration, in that order, on purpose.
4 stories the day keeps. Turn each card.
The king Hiranyakashipu demanded that all worship him alone, but his small son Prahlada would not stop remembering Vishnu. The king tried every way to break him, and each time the child was kept safe, unafraid and unhating.
Bhagavata Purana, Book 7, chapters 5 to 7.
Holika, the king's sister, could not be harmed by fire. She sat in a blazing pyre with Prahlada on her lap. The fire took her and left the child unharmed, and the bonfire of this night remembers it.
As the living tradition tells it.
Hiranyakashipu's boon said he could not die by day or night, indoors or out, by man or beast. Vishnu came out of a pillar as Narasimha, neither man nor beast, at twilight, on the threshold, and ended the tyranny that would not let a child pray.
Bhagavata Purana 7.8.
Young Krishna asked Yashoda why he was dark and Radha was fair. Laughing, she told him to colour Radha's face with whatever colour he liked. So the play of colour began in Braj, as a game between friends.
As Braj keeps it.
2 days kept as one season. Each has its own page.
The fire at dusk: Holika burns, the child does not.
You are hereRangwali Holi
The morning after the fire: colour, given to the willing.
Often said
Holi needs bright chemical colours, and everyone must play whether they want to or not.
The root
The old colours came from flowers: tesu, haldi, mehndi. Colour is offered to the willing, gently, and a no is respected; bura na mano was never a licence.
Often said
The bigger the fire, the greater the offering.
The root
The fire stands for malice burned away, and its size adds nothing. Fallen wood and dung cakes keep it whole; no living tree needs to be cut for it.
Free acts, done by you. Kept so far this year: 0 of 3.
Sit quietly with the heart, name one resentment you have been feeding, write it down and give it to the fire.
Read or tell the story of Prahlada to a child, and ask them what made him brave.
Share gujiya or a meal with someone who will not be part of any celebration: a guard, a worker, a neighbour alone.
Each act is free and done by you. Keeping one writes it to your karma ledger with the day's panchang. Nothing here is ever bought, and no act is a remedy.
The youngest
Hears Prahlada's story before the fire, and walks around it holding an elder's hand.
The eldest
Offers the first colour of the morning to each child, a touch of gulal on the forehead.
Everyone
Each person gives one resentment to the fire, in silence, before the colours begin.
Barsana and Nandgaon
Lathmar Holi: the women of Barsana playfully drive back the men of Nandgaon with sticks, as the men hold up their shields and sing.
Shantiniketan
Basanta Utsav, begun by Rabindranath Tagore: students in yellow sing and dance through the morning and offer abir.
Anandpur Sahib, Punjab
Hola Mohalla, begun by Guru Gobind Singh: displays of martial skill, kirtan and langar on the days after Holi.
Bengal and Odisha
Dol Purnima: Krishna is carried on a swing with abir, and Bengal also keeps the day as the birth of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
Manipur
Yaoshang: several days of sport, song and the Thabal Chongba, a dance in the moonlight.
Kept on the day its tithi runs at dusk (pradosh).
The day is chosen by the moment the tradition reads its tithi at, and the times are that day's own, computed for this city. A festival-specific puja window is not printed: those rules differ by tradition and await a scholar's review.
The stories, their sources and the regional customs on this page await a scholar's review. The sky and the dates are computed for your city.