Colors

White t-shirt, jeans. Both ready to be sacrificed. But there was no sacrifice. I walked down the long alleyway to the main road. Houses on both sides. Around the corner, to the right, along the main road itself, the streets were quiet. Perhaps it was around noontime. Looking up, there were more people than usual on the rooftops. Little children, one or two adults. The houses, some of them, are quite tall- with a more or less square floorplan, cement pillars with iron rods embedded inside the cement, brick filling the space between the pillars. Many are painted, some are just the color of cement. But with black moss around the top, the bottom of the short walls around the roof's perimeter. These are the places where water splashes, and sticks. Where the sunlight hits only for only a few hours during the day. One of them has clothing hanging from lines. The lines sag. A water tank, black, plastic, sits majestically on a circular frame, elevated above the roof. The frame is brown with rust. Then the pipes that stick up around the tank like flagpoles without flags. There are two- perhaps one is for the solar heater and the other one the tank. There are four children on this house. Perhaps they will let me pass.

They do.

A cab. Finally. Up ahead there was a group, waiting for a passerby. I wore white- a perfect target. I stepped in, sat down, closed the door, rolled up the window. The car moved a few feet. SPLAT. Someone hoped to get me at the last minute. The next possible target- a fellow sitting on a wall, in front of a corner store that had shiny colorful plastic packets big and small hanging all over, goods on the floor, along the walls. The store woman in her red flower patterned maxi dress- those that are like hospital gowns but without the string in the back to tie the two sides closed. It is a single piece of cloth with one hole for the neck, two holes for the arms, and one big hole opposite the neck hole for the rest of the body.

The poor fellow was wearing a neon green sports suit with two thick shiny dark green pinstripes along the middle of the arm, from the collar down to the wrist. And a matching cap. Sunglasses. Sipping tea, supporting his body against a short wall, with the right leg folded, the other leg straight. Half-squat. Out of nowhere, his sweat suit was soaked with water the color of his milk tea. Soaked.

It could not have been a balloon. Most likely, a plastic bag. Clear, small, slightly larger than balloons that are fully inflated. They hold much more water. But they are more likely to have holes. And to close the top there are two options. One, you twist and twist. Hold the bag by the twist and spin the bulging bottom. Then, tuck the twist into the filled part as much as possible, throw and pray that it does not open. Most likely, it will open. The other option is to use a small rubber band.

"Didi, euta plastic dinus na!"

That is a taunt that came over and over from a couple of kids on the roof of the next house towards the group on this roof. The plastic bags tend to open before hitting their targets. And that means the target instead of being hit gets an extra bag. She wanted an extra bag.

I had reached my destination in Naya Baneshwor, across the street and downhill from the Everest Hotel, and a left and another left and along the way some. There were about six of us on this roof. The houses were close together. In any direction, there were at least three liquid filled projectiles arching through the air. Some aimed at this roof, some at other roofs. It lasted for perhaps thirty minutes. Incessant. The throwers were not always visible. But the projectiles always gave them away. Varying heights, varying colors. Some red, some brick color, some unpainted cement, some well painted with patterns. All along the slope. The slope was the equalizer. Even houses that were shorter than the rest would become taller because they would be further up along the slope. SPLAT. SPLAT. SPLAT....it continued. Somehow, this roof had become the target.

A friend came. Covered in Abir. Red, of course, but also smothered with some powdered dye perhaps of the sort used for bhai tika. They were multiple colors. He had a tray. Those colors were going to discolor me too.

He had a plastic bag with some things wrapped in newspaper. Laddus. Round, yellow, sweet. There seemed to be two types. The yellow-orange ones, and brown ones. I tried a masala laddu- the brown one. It was softer than usual.

Eventually, colors looked brighter. The abir in the water which was to go into the plastic bags to be thrown changed color from red to neon orange. The roof didn't look so high anymore.

It must have been a bhang laddu.

Happy Holi.