"Holi hai!!" On this full moon day only three years into the new millennium, a small village near the town of Jaunpur 760 kms south-east of Delhi, began its celebrations of the Holi festival just like thousands of other villages and town and cities in northern India. Just like they had done since circa 300 BC. A little after the crack of dawn, children ran out of their houses while the elders were still asleep or just stirring, renting the stillness with their high-pitched screams of "Holi hai" ("It's Holi!). They carried with them bags of coloured powder and water guns which they would use through the morning to throw on each other and water spray the elders.
Legend has it that there once lived a devil and powerful king, who considered himself a god and wanted everybody to worship him. To his great ire, his son began to worship Lord Vishnu. To get rid of his son, the demon king asked his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with his son in her lap, as she had a boon to enter fire unscathed. The son was saved from the fire because of his extreme devotion to the lord while Holika paid the price for her sinister deed.
On the eve of this festival of colour, when the moon is full in the sky, a ritual bonfire is lit in every small village - as in all the millions of localities in the thousands of towns - and an effigy of Holika is burnt in a celebration of good over evil. This is accompanied with much gaiety and song, making it a major social occasion for the villagers.
The previous evening, all the unmarried teenage girls of this village danced around the bonfire as the men folk played their drums and string instruments. The girls ranged from 14 to 19; the one exception being a 23 year old that went by the name of Sunita.
She had three younger sisters, two of whom were already married and had gone off to live in neighbouring villages with their husbands. Although custom in the village dictated that the eldest get married first, Sunita had fought both with her parents as well as social norms to remain single. She herself wasn't quite sure why, other than the fact that she couldn't come to terms with the idea of marrying a complete stranger - as all marriages in rural (and many in urban) India were "arranged" between the two sets of parents, and often an intermediary relative. A number of the single men had eyed and coveted her over the years but she was feisty and few dared to go beyond the first attempt at ensnaring her heart.
At 23 Sunita was a grown woman. She was about 5'4" tall, had absolutely flawless skin with a darkish dusky complexion. She had long hair that grew down to her buttocks; jet black and oiled once a week to keep its fine texture and lustre. She had a small golden ring that she wore in her nose on the right nostril, and two tiny studs on her ear lobes. Her neck was long and graceful and rested almost elegantly on her shoulders, slightly broader than the average woman of her height. A thin gold chain that had been given to her by her grandmother adorned her neck. Her breasts were young and firm, round and full and she wore 38D size brassieres - for her height, she was probably considered busty. For five years now she had always worn a saree and blouse, having long gone past the age where it would be socially acceptable for her to wear a skirt - or frocks as they are often referred to in rural India.
The saree suited her perfectly. She was always modestly dressed; no cleavage revealed since she never wore low-cut blouses, and the back of the blouse was just as modest as the neckline. And usually, the sleeves came down her arms just short of her elbows. She wore her petticoat barely revealing her navel, and the top of the sari which is tucked into the petticoat drawstring usually hid her bellybutton. However, because of her very slender 24" waistline and the swell of her hips to a well shaped 36", the sari often seemed to heighten the sensuousness of her hourglass shape, especially when she walked. Even though she never accentuated her gait in anyway by swaying her hips, her teenage years - and even later - were often difficult times because of the wolf whistles and catcalls she attracted from the young men of the village. Over time, however, this had dwindled and the village folk were more protective of her when men from other villages either came by or were part of the social occasions that drew everyone to the nearby town of Jaunpur.
After the girls had danced around the bonfire for the first twenty or thirty minutes, there was a brief interruption as more wood was fed to the fire. The effigy of Holika had long gone up in smoke, but the revelry was just beginning. The men folk had already started consuming bhang - a preparation from the leaves and buds of the cannabis plant - either by smoking it in their chillums or mixed in a beverage of their choice. Associated with Lord Shiva, bhang is now virtually synonymous with the Holi festival.
After the bonfire was fed more fuel and fully stoked, some of the men took up their drums, strapped them around their necks, and began a rhythmic beat that started with one drum that was then joined by another, and yet another, till finally seven or eight men were clapping the drum-skins and dancing around the fire. The younger girls aged 12 or 13 got up and played beside the fire, running in and out between the drummers. Some of the lads were from the neighbouring village, visiting relatives or friends; there were a couple with that were muscular and fit, strapping youngsters with well-oiled bodies, leading the drum-and-dance show. The elders, sitting around the bonfire, cheered them on with raucous laughter and loud clapping of hands.
As the girls got up from the fireside one by one to dance, this time even the married ladies with their husbands or brothers, Sunita slid backwards away from the light so she wouldn't be noticed by anyone. She used her hands to push back on her backside for about 30 feet, back stepping the last few yards on her haunches. She now sat on a grassy knoll observing the festivities below. The light still caught the angles of her cheekbones and nose, her neck and her shoulders, her breasts and the uncovered portion of her waist, her folded up thighs and the last three inches of her exposed ankles, leaving the rest of her body in starkly contrasting darkness. Her eyes glistened and a careful observer would still see the kohl lining she had used tonight.
She looked on at all the married girls of her age, the unmarried ones that would soon find husbands and go away, the oiled bodies of smooth-skinned young men with their taut abdominal muscles, the elders and the babies, all joining in the celebrations. She felt a little despondent, not quite sure why. There was a kind of emptiness that seemed to be overpowering her - not just tonight, but for a few months now, although it felt a little more oppressive tonight than on other days. Or maybe it was a sense of restlessness.
As the fire began to die down, the crowds started to disperse, aware that the morning would bring more celebration and merriment. Sunita's younger sister had gone with her cousins to their aunt's house where she would be spending the night so Sunita walked home with her mother. Her father would come in a little later, after a few more rounds of bhang with the other farmers.
They lived in a small house that had only been walled in and mortared a couple of years ago; before that it was mainly mud and thatch that had been home to the sisters as they grew up. Now it had two rooms; one in which Sunita's parents slept and kept all their worldly possessions, the other doubled as an all-purpose room in the day and a bedroom for the two sisters at night. By midnight, her parents had retired, the lights were switched off, all the doors were either locked or bolted, and the house - like the rest of the village - had sunk into complete silence. Only the occasional sound of a nocturnal animal or bird reacting to the full moon broke the stillness from time to time.
Sunita lay on her back with the moonlight streaming in through a window on to her face. She had taken off the saree that she'd worn earlier, now lying just in her petticoat. Although she still wore her blouse, she had removed the obstructing brassiere for the night. She had also unfastened three of the four hooks that ran down the front of her blouse so as to release the strain on her large breasts. That's how she dressed for sleep every night.
Sleep unfortunately didn't come easy for Sunita that night. She dosed in and out of a phantom zone where she couldn't be sure whether she was dreaming, or awake. At one point, a dark cumulus cloud passed over the moon, leaving her room in darkness for some moments before a hazy penumbraic light filtered through. She thought she heard thunder, or maybe she just dreamt it. Flashes of the drum and dance sequences by the bonfire earlier splashed a mosaic in her mind; semi-naked bodies of the young men stood out in vivid contrast to the shadows beyond the fire. A pleasant breeze wafted in through her window, bringing with it the smell of wild flowers, cow-dung and rain. She seemed to see the droplets fall through the darkness, flickering as they reflected the light from the moon momentarily on their way to the earth.
Sunita had not covered herself with a blanket or any other wrap; winter was gone and the hot Indian summer was only a few weeks away. In her semi-sleep daze, her hands involuntarily smoothed the cotton of her petticoat over her legs, and she shivered from the sensitivity of her skin. She slid her fingers up and pressed between her thighs, feeling the cotton grow damp as she rubbed gently.
Another gust of air brushed over her skin; she felt the wind carrying a light spatter of rain through the screen of her window. One large drop hit her breast, just next to the nipple, and she gasped at the sensation, bringing her to a complete state of wakefulness. Her face was flushed and her entire body covered in a fine sheen of perspiration. She was in a terrible state of confusion because of the dream she had just been engrossed in; the young man from a neighbouring village who had danced around the bonfire bare-chested and vibrant. She thought for a moment that his tongue had flicked across her skin, and her nipple puckered waiting for his kiss. Her body ached to feel hands, tongue, fingers, anything. The thunder was still in the distance, but she could see flashes of lightning on the horizon as it came closer.
