It's a Holi holiday

CHECK IN

Experience this colourful spring festival anew in another corner of India.

If you prefer to keep yourself indoors on the otherwise social day of Holi and avoid all contact with dry and wet colours alike for various reasons, perhaps a revival of the real essence of the celebration could add some flavour to the season.

Like many Indian festivals, Holi is not traditionally a one-day affair. It commences about 10 days before the full moon, so celebrations have already begun in places where the tradition still holds.

Mathura and Vrindavan have always been the heart of the festival, for Krishna is believed to have infused the spirit of Holi in the holy towns.

Festivities take over the place for more than a week here and one of the places in town where the real essence comes alive is at the famous Bakai-Bihari temple in Vrindavan, just 15 km outside Mathura.

From there, you can move on to Gulal-Kund in Braj, a lovely little lake near Govardhan hill, where you find locals enacting a Krishna-Lila for pilgrims.

Now Holi eats may not be such a riot these days, but bhang never really goes out of style. For the real taste of bhang (which may be quite the big city thing to do on Holi but still, synthetic), head to Varanasi, where the thandai is the seasonal favourite the city rides high on. The Ganga flows heavily coloured, and the city is a glorious sight on the full moon night.

But if you want to give holy places a miss and insist on the beach and some fun, the land where everybody heads for sun, sand and sea is, suprisingly, a good option. Goa, too, plays its part in the festivities.

Here Holi is celebrated as Shigmo, and Goans engage in a parade and enact cultural dramas based on mythology. Now that is a tempting mix of tradition and leisure.

Towards the east, Santiniketan makes for an interesting Holi visit. It is said that Rabindranath Tagore was so inspired by the spirit of Holi that he revived it as a spring festival at Visva Bharati University, calling it Vasanta Utsav. Rife with song and dance and all kinds of cultural events, it has since become a part of Bengali culture.

Through the six days of cele-bration, the valleys of Manipur resound with the great tradition of Holi. Dressed in white and with yellow turbans, devotees colour the streets with songs, dancing to Krishna's tunes in front of his temple.

The final day is marked by various programmes and a gala procession to the main Krishna temple in Imphal. With the main day of the festival falling on the weekend, make colourful use of it and head out.