Holi & Holika Dahan

Katha · The story

Why we keep it

Hiranyakashipu, king of the demons, had won the boon that no man or animal, no weapon, could kill him by day or night, inside or outside. His son Prahlad worshipped Vishnu, which he could not bear. He tried every way to kill the boy and failed, and at last asked his sister Holika, who could not be burnt, to sit in a fire with Prahlad in her lap. Holika burnt; Prahlad walked out. Then Vishnu came as Narasimha, half man, half lion, at dusk, on the threshold, and tore the king apart. The bonfire of Holika Dahan is the night before Holi, lit at the chowk of every tola in Malinagar.

The morning after is colour: gulal first, then the water, then the mud from the pokhar, and finally the river to wash it off. The afternoon is new clothes, pua, malpua and dahi-bada, and the Jogira: the men of each tola going house to house with dholak and jhal singing the fagua songs until the last light. The mango trees are in flower, and the smell of the manjar and the colour are the same memory for every Malinagar child.