Year after year, nothing changed.
Holi would come, the eager children out in the streets, the families drenched in laughter, buckets of joy, a hapless, pink dog seeking refuge behind the compound gate, but Mishra? Still the same.
Pristine, defiant, white kurta pajama, disapproving glasses right down his nose, arms crossed tight at the third floor balcony.
“Kharoos!” The ladies would giggle and whisper. The men would shake their heads, rubbing their soaked bellies, and the children? The children, in the way of children, simply played.
All, except Geeta. Tower C, 4th floor. 5th class, at Bharatiya Vidya Mandir.
She too watched, the children, Mishra, and the pink dog. An impenetrable gaze. Eyes that gave little away.
As dusk gathered, and the last stragglers made their way home, two stories tightened around two silent hearts, all colours melding into darkness.
“Oye Mishra, aata hoon. Namaaz ke baad. Don’t start without me okay? I promised dad I would go with him. I’ll see you right after. I hear senior school boys from F block are planning an egg ambush – don’t let them catch you okay? Naak mat katwana. I won’t be long.“
Mishra, waiting at home. At the door. In the balcony. On the stairwell. Where was that fool Fayaz? “Aata hoon” it seems. Bet he went to namaaz, met his cousins and forgot all about our plan. All his ammunition was locked and loaded. The expensive pichkaris that were like turbo powered weapons. The bucket of coloured water, the water bombs, even some eggs he had managed to sneak away. Fayaz?
“Fayaaaaz!“
A mob outside the mosque, drunken men dancing, heckling, pushing against namazees, a man forcing colour on his father, knocking him off his feet. Foolish Fayaz, charging, only to meet a concealed knife, crimson on white, Fayaz falls. On his lips, “Papa, Mishra is waiting. Papa. Papa.“
And what of our Geeta? Geeta who loved trigonometry, dancing and dogs. Not necessarily in that order. Geeta who was late coming back from rehearsal, last Holi. Who took an auto as she often did. Who felt for the first time, how her no, her refusal did not matter. How at the traffic lights, a group of boys, men, coloured her face with their violating hands, “bura na maano holi hai,” and the hate that rose in her throat and stopped at her voice, transformed into a single tear of rage and disgust, as a rough, grasping hand ventured across her neck, down the front of her blouse. Thankfully, the lights changed and she sat mutely, mouthing each word aflame inside her, “bura na maano, holi hai.” In the rear view mirror, the auto driver shrugged, leered.
But what is Holi if not renewal, change, hope? What is it if not the burning away of evil and from the ashes, the rising of the new?
Perhaps a day will come when Mishra will join the revellers, for Fayaz, and allow his pristine, defiant kurta to become a kaleidoscope of memory and colour.
And one day, little Geeta will chase after the boys with her pichkari, who chased after the building dog, determined to settle scores.
And one day, our beautiful building dog, let’s call her Lovely, for her limpid eyes, will watch the temporary madness and revelry of her humans, with interest, some sympathy, maybe even confusion, but without fear.
And that day, it will be a Happy Holi, for all.
