Is this the road to Nandgaon?” we asked a couple of pink-tinged people in a car on the highway to Mathura. They looked at us incredulously, laughing among themselves at the folly of three city women actually wanting to participate in the mayhem and madness of the region’s Lathmaar Holi. After giving us directions, they drove off, still laughing. But we were undeterred, having heard so much about the picturesque Holi tradition followed by the people from Radha and Krishna’s villages, Barsana and Nandgaon. We’d heard that every year, they re-enacted the legendary romance of Radha and Krishna on Holi. The men teased the women and sprayed them with water and colour, while the women beat them off with sticks. Keenly interested in seeing this unusual reversal of gender roles in what was clearly a male-dominated heartland, we’d pooh-poohed all warnings about it being a raucous bhaang-fuelled affair.
As we walked up the narrow picturesque alleys leading to the Nandgaon Temple — the age-old venue of the Lathmaar Holi celebrations every year, a couple of kids sprayed us with their puny water pistols. “How sweet!” we cried, coloured by the Holi spirit. Then their hulking fathers stepped forward and coloured us in bright hues of pink and green. Up on the ramparts of the temple, we looked on the frenetically dancing multitudes below. Every now and again, they’d throw fistfuls of colour, a beautiful sight against the white backdrop of the temple.
Things suddenly began to change hue when a 13-year-old walked up to us: “What’s your country name?” He demanded to know. Charmed at first by his confident loquaciousness, we humoured him, chaffing along. Then he began demanding payment for the time he’d spent with us. For the first time, I looked into his eyes and realised he was completely high! He stuck to us, offensive and leech-like. It struck me that if a mere child could get so pushy in a festival that celebrated that strange brand of masculine pushiness, how would older men behave towards us?
We soon found out when we braved the narrow alleys downhill to head back to our car. Buckets of violently coloured liquid rained on our heads while disembodied water cannons sprayed us from all directions. All one could hear were chants of “Radhey Radhey” as the goons of Nandgaon replayed all their pent up fantasies pelting us with water and colour. We tried to take shelter in local homes, but nobody let us in. “Why did you come to our village if you didn’t want to play Holi?” an old woman jeered, “you rich city women land up for our festival and expect to be treated differently from how our own young daughters are treated. This will teach you that educated or illiterate, rich or poor — for men all women are the same. We’re all Radhas to them and nothing more...”
Her parting words echoed in my brain long after we’d beaten a hasty retreat from Krishna’s village. We’d anticipated seeing a piquant reversal of gender roles in the famous Lathmaar Holi of Barsana and Nandgaon — what we actually experienced showed me that the age-old roles were firmly in place and endorsed by both sexes. And interestingly, although the old lady of Nandgaon said we were all Radhas together, she felt little sense of sisterhood, no shared outrage when the colours of Holi turned against us.