Multicolored powders for sale during Holi

© Nuno Valadas/Getty Image

A holiday as colourful as the season. Holi festival

The ancient Hindu festival of Holi will find partygoers caked in these colourful powders by the day's end. Also referred to as the Festival of Spring, the Festival of Love, and the Festival of Colours, Holi symbolizes the triumph of good over evil and celebrates the beginning of spring, the end of winter, and the blossoming of love in all forms. It's a time for affirming friendships, burying old grievances, and letting romance bloom.

But the real fun of Holi is the audience-participation portion, for which the holiday is most famous. Celebrants sprinkle and smear one another with brightly coloured powders, typically made by colouring rice flour or corn starch with food dye. Water is tossed into the mix by way of water guns and water balloons and the resulting scene is of other-worldly, kaleidoscopic festivity.

Although chiefly celebrated in India, Holi has spread around the world, along with the Indian diaspora. In a festival marked by singing, dancing, eating, frolicking, and non-stop merriment, it’s easy to see why word spread quickly.