Excerpt from an article in a newspaper today morning:-
"Holi is the day when people drop their inhibitions and take to the streets with lots of gulal and coloured water as their arsenal. They smear the colours on unsuspecting passers-by, who may have ventured out with a prayer that they may be spared. It might be then that 'the prankster' and 'the victim' bond with colours and lot of goodwill."
So the canonization of hooliganism begins. The article hit me in an empty stomach, so it's effect was especially potent. It is things like this that make me despair about the future of our great nation. Seriously. When a bunch of multicoloured monkeys descend on a hapless individual and smear him with chemicals that cannot possibly be good for any part of the body, how exactly is that social bonding? Dear Mr. fancy newspaper article writer (you know who you are), let me give you an amazing bit of insight into human psychology. When a person leaves his house "praying" that he wont be assaulted and molested on the streets, he probably, just probably, really does NOT want to be assaulted and molested. Unless the 'prankster' is Katrina Kaif in a bikini and the 'victim' is someone who looks like me, there is no way he is going to bond with the delinquents who spray him with foul smelling , toxic paint laden water and run away, laughing like jackasses while they do it. There is no colourful bollywood style musical montage where the 'prankster' and 'victim' see each other through a mist of colour and social understanding and goodwill and embrace while 50 extras dance in the background. It most likely ends with the 'victim' cursing the parents, grandparents and all ancestors of the 'pranksters' while vainly trying to clean himself and hoping and praying he won't have to leave his house next year.