Holi Folly!!

Its Holi today! For those of you not in the thick of things, it's the festival of color in India. That's why it ought to be my favourite festival too(I adore COLor). As a child in a missionary boarding school in the hills we didn't get to see the real thing but heard a rosy story of what the festival 'was' not what it's turned out to be, alas.
Coming from the sheltered hills to the real world, urban India was a bit of a shock; Holi was berserk, rowdy & wild. I stayed tucked in my shell for years on the festive day, with revellers ferreting out hiders with mounds of toxic color & pails of water.

This year, surprisingly, I'm eager to be be bang in the middle of the revelry (it's been a while) I want to get colored & I'm making my own natural dyes at home, with whatever I can find in the kitchen. Beetroot(Barbabietola) and turmeric (curcuma) will give me brilliant fuschia and yellow.

Turmeric powder

Boiled beetroot

Since my first lot of beetroot(which had aged a little) yielded a pale yellowish liquid, I did a second one. The color was cooling but Holi was already in full swing and in came the merrymakers, toxic, non-toxic, natural or not they gave a hang, if you're game you've got to get colored any which way... and so I joined in the fun!

Al fine di t-shirt bianca!

So that's how it was! :)

Holi it is.. I don't make the rules!

I hope those of you around the world who played had a great time too!