Holi is celebrated by Hindus but not by Muslims, who resent colour being thrown on them. The festival falls in the beginning of March which corresponds to the Indian month of Phagun, when the colours of spring transform the landscape as if by the magic brush of a painter who, with deft strokes changes the bleak scenario of winter to the yellow, pink and golden hues of Basant, noted Capt Ridgeway in his diary before the Uprising in 1857. By that time the heat of summer was to bring about a drastic change in the natural surroundings, with tree leaves drooping under the impact of the blazing sun and forcing people to take shelter either in their homes or in shady nooks and corners. The only redeeming feature, Ridgeway noted, was the pleasantness of the early mornings and late evenings, “when the heat subsided and one went to the gardens for fresh air and figs sold in leaf-cups”. That was an observation by a man who had spent a few years in India and even fewer in Delhi and Ambala.
But contrary to popular perception some leading Muslims, among whom were nawabs, did celebrate the festival of colours with great enthusiasm that year also as their ancestors had been courtiers at the durbar of Mohammad Shah Rangila and later Shah Alam, Akbar Shah Sani and Bahadur Shah Zafar. Among them Mohammad Shah and Zafar celebrated Holi with great gusto, though Shah Alam did not mind dabbling in colours with Maratha chieftains, whose leader, Mahadji Scindia, was the most powerful military leader in North India with the emperor under his thumb. Akbar Shah did not mind his financiers, the bullion merchants of Chandni Chowk led by Seth Sidhu Mal, putting gulal on his forehead and sprinking rosewater on his royal clothes, which dried up very fast, leaving behind a faint perfume. Bahadur Shah Zafar, the least orthodox of them, liked the Holi revelry of his subjects and also participated in it keeping in mind his status as the inheritor of Moghul dignity. The orthodox nobles of his court however preferred to stay indoors during the time the colour throwing was at its peak.
Subdued note
In 1948, post-partition, Holi was celebrated on a subdued note in Delhi, Agra and other prominent cities. There were warnings from the police that colour was not to be thrown on unwilling people, yet there was perceptible tension in Chandni Chowk, Daryaganj, Paharganj and Dev Nagar. Fearing a riot, a strong police force was made to patrol the thoroughfares. Though there was no rioting, sporadic clashes were reported from some areas, where a sort of curfew-like situation prevailed later.
However by 1949 conditions became more stable and Holi was celebrated without major incidents. In the mid-1950s the nawabzadas of Aligarh and Agra, along with some kunwars of Wazirpura and Dhirpura celebrated Holi in style in Chandni Chowk. They went about in an old weapon-carrier spraying colour on all and sundry with rubber tubes immersed in big drums filled with coloured water. That year, like in other years, also saw grand celebrations outside Lala Chunna Mal's haveli. In the Jama Masjid area, a much-married Urdu poet, one of whose compositions is echoed in the film song, “Gal Gulabi, chaal sharabi/Aap se accha kohi nahin hai”, went about greeting his men and women friends in the Walled City and presenting them his romantic verses sprinkled with wet gulal.
A practice in those days for Hindi newspapers was to award “Holi degrees” to friends, colleagues, acquaintances and also political leaders. These were in the form of one-line sentences which were both ribald and hilarious. About that time one old tradition that ended was the Christian Holi, celebrated on Shrove Tuesday, a day before Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of the fasting season of Lent. Now Holi has lost much of its colourful past and even the colours are scarce as black and silver paint is generally used to smear people, who have to spend long hours in cleaning it and also risking skin infection in the bargain.
