Mark Fagu With Fun

Britti Aryal

Holi, the festival of colours, has begun today in the Kathmandu Valley and some other parts of the country. It is such a fun festival. People enjoy this festival with friends and family by smearing colours and throwing colours and water-filled balloons at each other. Gathering in large groups, playing with colours, drenching in water, dancing, and enjoying with loved ones makes the festival more convivial.

But along with the revelry, the festival of colours has become a day of dread for many people. The alleged involvement of people in unlawful activities like smearing colours forcefully on people, throwing water balloons, disturbing pedestrians without their consent, and disrupting people by drinking alcohol has made the celebration disquiet.  Chasing people throughout their way to attack with water balloons and people getting drunk and forcibly rubbing colours on others losing all their sense has made Holi, fearful and hostile.

In the name of celebration for victory of good over evil, many people specially women are harassed and the shameful thing is nobody reacts to this and the issue goes unnoticed which encourages people to continue with such activities. The value of consent and personal space has been major concern during this festival. Not only this, drinking and driving has also been very risky. Violating traffic rules and rough driving has kept many lives in danger. Even pedestrians aren’t safe walking along the streets. It is really problematic for people to get out of home on this day. 

Unnecessary and unlikely gathering of people in public places has interrupted movement of emergency vehicles creating so much of trouble. Large mass gathering has also increased the risk of robbery. Holi has become little excitement with more trepidation. Besides, Holi is the festival of colours and the same colours has become ticklish. Colour powder is used extensively during the festival. Due to the artificial colours manufactured with varieties of chemicals, numerous health risk has arisen, especially skin problems. The mixture of harmful colours is more likely to create irritation, itching, rashes, infections and allergic reactions. 

Additionally, Holi is proving to be an environmental risk due to the toxic colours and the plastic balloons used during the celebration. The plastic bags used during the festival are extremely harmful to our ecosystem. Plastics increases pollution making the surrounding dirty creating drainage problems. The festivals end up in one or two day leaving behind the trashes for days. Over and above this, the city faces the shortage of water time to time. People waste lots of water in Holi and this misuse can be really problematic in coming days creating water scarcity. 

The increasing culture of playing Holi in pubs, clubs and different places adding huge amount of entry fees clearly shows that the festival has become state of business leaving behind the true cultural and traditional values as well. During every Holi, we get to catch up the news of people falling from the fences, rooftops and buildings. Holi can be a great time for everybody to celebrate if you try to play carefully avoiding all the mishaps. It is necessary for everybody to understand about the personal space and regard consent. In a bid to protect the environment it is mandatory to avoid/ use less balloons and plastics and play Holi in a dry way with natural colours following all the safety precautions in an open area with less mass gathering and without disturbing others.