Let me start off with a story. A story about love and childlike playfulness, a story about tradition sprinkled in with fun banter.
So let us turn the clocks back, hundreds of thousands of years ago, when Gods and Goddesses roamed this heavenly abode, that we call 'Earth'. During one of those times, a young adolescent boy called Krishna fell in love with a beautiful maiden, Radha. But Krishna had a despair in his heart - he thought that he would never have his love for Radha reciprocated because of his darker skin. His mother, Yashoda, tired and worried about her son's predicament came up with a plan. She told Krishna to approach Radha and ask her to colour his face in any colour that she wanted. Playful Radha did exactly that, she blissfully coloured Krishna's face with every possible hue she can get her hands on, and Krishna, ever so delighted, reciprocated in kind. Needless to say, all the despairing thoughts of Krishna were washed away by the colours and he realised, with absolute glee, that Radha harboured the same kind of love for Krishna in her heart. Over the years, their love grew for each other and became the stuff of legends; and the game of applying colours to the faces of one's loved ones grew into an annual tradition called "Holi".
Nowadays, it is played with the same fervour and joy all over India, as well as, in different parts of the world. Typically falling in March, it is played also to commemorate the end of winter and the advent of spring.
Now, I guess you, the reader, might be thinking how is this related to photography. I promise I will get there. But before that, let me tell you another story. This time, about another adolescent boy from a small town in North-Eastern India. It was during the time when mobile phones were not a part of our daily lives and children spent most of their time playing outside. This boy was no different. He loved to be outside with his friends, exploring the small forests and gardens around his house and when at home, he whiled away his time in his imaginary world teeming with characters from his favourite cartoons and fantasy novels; and every year he waited ardently for the month of March, for the festival of colours - Holi. Fast forward to March 2019, when this boy, now a man, left his abode in the clouds (the state of Meghalaya in India) and came to Germany in search of a better life. But he missed his home, the colourful food and most of all, he missed his friends. This homesickness or as the Germans so aptly say "Heimweh" (pining, longing for home) found refuge in photography. Within those four walls of the camera's LCD screen, the childlike imagination ran wild and untethered. This imagination guided him to the woodlands around his adopted home, and his restless, homesick mind finally found solace.
But he still missed Holi - dousing and getting doused in colours and water by his friends and family while having a jolly time, not having a care in the world. And then, he discovered Autumn in the woodlands surrounding his adopted home; and lo and behold, all that nostalgia was washed away by the melange of colours that he saw unfurl in front of his eyes. He realised what all those poets and writers from his childhood were alluding to, when they waxed poetic about the beauty of the season and in his mind's eye, he saw it as Nature playing Holi with all her denizens. Trees splashing a medley of colours on their neighbours, winds blowing away these coloured leaves creating a multicoloured carpet on the ground and on the water bodies. Cloudy overcast skies, that reminded him of his abode in the clouds, followed by rain making all those colours dazzle with all the glory and among all this magnificence, that same boy, now a man, bearing witness to this radiant resplendence, wearing a beaming smile and probably, sorry, scratch that, most definitely, a spark of nostalgia in his eyes.
Now, coming to the present, as I write this while staring out of my window seat at the German spring landscape rushing past, I realise that I have just droned on for almost two pages and I am not entirely sure if I was able to make this analogy make any sense to you, the reader. But, I do urge you to take a moment, indulge me and take a walk down a sylvan lane and experience this riot of colours, that I lovingly call "Holi"
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