Gujarát and the Gujarátis/The Unholy Holi
Perhaps the most popular, though certainly not at all reputable, of Gujarát holidays is the
Unholy Holi.
Holi is not a holy institution wholly, but it is a jolly holiday nevertheless. It is the season of free love and free language, not only among the Vaishnavas, but the lower castes of Gujarát, the Saturnalia of indecent song, the high carnival of mad carousal. It is the season of rang and rág, which two innocent-looking monosyllables the High Court Translator may translate as "red paint and music," but which, in reality, mean the luxuries of love's embrace, the sporting of Káma[1] and Rati.[2] The origin of Holi has been a subject of ardent speculation by philosophers and theosophists. It ought to be credited with divine beginning, if Hindu antiquaries are to be believed. But as Hindu antiquaries are far too mystic and imaginative for this age, it would be better to be content with a more rational genesis. It is this: Once upon a time, when civilisation was not, there lived in a certain nagri[3] a great Barna sowcár—a merchant prince more opulent than Crœsus. This great sowcár, we are told, had an immense lot of goods and chattels, an immense lot of servants and slaves, an immense lot of wives and handmaids. But he had no heir to perpetuate his name. By dint of prayers and penances he, however, prevailed upon the gods to give him issue. This was promised to be a son; but the sowcár happening to offend one of the deities, he got at last only a daughter. But he was content. Why, he thought, the gods could have given me anything or nothing! Their will be done.
That brings me to the sowcár with an only daughter. She was a lovely thing, became lovelier as she grew, and at the age of thirteen she was absolutely bewitching. She sat at the window every cool evening, dressed handsomer than Cleopatra, chewing pán sopári and slyly squirting the red nectar amongst the enthralled crowd below. The marble forehead, the silken tresses, the swan-like neck, those rainbow brows, and those coral lips sent the gallants raving mad. But who could openly aspire to her hand? Every prodigal son of an impoverished race (and of such are your gallants) was the sowcár's debtor. With what face could he ask for the hand of the sowcár's only daughter, when he had not been able to return a paltry sum of money! So Hulika (that was her name) grew in the loveliness and loneliness, till one moonlit night she espied a lovable Rajput youth, deep in her father's debt. They looked at each other, their eyes met, their hearts went out to each other, &c. &c. Huliká directly sent her dási[4], her "dearer than mother," after the youth. A meeting was arranged, and their "united fate" discussed. Their troths were plighted on the spot. But it was hopeless to win the father over, in whose iron safe was locked up the lover's destiny, in the shape of promissory notes and such other documents of high interest. Elopement was the only way, and that the lover proposed. At first Huliká shrank from the proposal ;but,like a wise young woman she was, in less than five minutes she succumbed to the arts of the sweet enchanter. But Huliká was a virtuous Helen, look you; and she therefore took the dási (old nurse) with them. She left a note for dear papa, stating she was carried away against her wishes, but that she could not survive this vile treatment for a week; however, she had the old maid-servant with her, and that she hoped she would shortly become suttee if her honour were not saved. They took a good many valuable nick-nacks with them, and with rare temerity took lodgings in the same street. The town was in an uproar in the morning, and the old sowcár instituted a rigorous search in the neighbouring cities. Huliká ascertained that day that in spite of the innocent little note she had left behind, the women of the town took her to be a party to a scandalous amour. Her virtuous instincts were outraged, and from the depths of her woman's resources she at once evolved a plan by which her reputation should be saved. She got up at the dead of night, locked the old woman, who was asleep, in the room, locked all doors save one from inside, and coolly set fire to the house in various parts. When she saw no human efforts could save the house, she dressed herself as a jogini,[5] getting her astonished lover to do likewise. And locking the remaining door from outside, this daughter of Gujarát left the town. A few hours later the house was found to be on fire. Efforts were made to save it; but before daylight it was all a wreck. In the morning they found the sowcár's old dási burnt to death, but easy of recognition. Then it was that the wise women of the town proclaimed that Huliká the virtuous had committed suttee, and that the immortal gods had taken her up from the grasp of the cruel but baffled seducer. Huliká henceforward came to be recognised as one of the saints; and there was no one, not even the old dási, thanks to Huliká's precaution, to contradict the general belief. This is one version of Holi, given by the blind bard of Gujarát, but which I, for my part, cannot quite accept.
The Holi of the day is supposed to be the annual celebration of this suttee affair. It is a national holiday, and has a wonderful power for demoralisation over the infatuated Vaishnava, the sturdy Márátha (the lower order only, I believe), and the stingy Márwári. You can in Bombay see Holi in full swing in two places, the Máháráj's Mandir und the Márwári Bazar. In the former could be witnessed, for days together, a promiscuous assemblage of devoted worshippers, without distinction of age, sex, or social position, revelling in hideous orgies such as the Western imagination could hardly picture. Modest young women are submitted to showers of coloured water and clouds of red paint. They are handled to a degree of indecent familiarity incredible to the outside public. At one exhibition like this hundreds of young women are liable to go astray from the inborn modesty of their nature. It is a wonder how, with such social customs as these, the Vaishnavas lead such happy, contented, and respectable lives. But these malign associations of Holi are happily dying out. In the streets you may still encounter respectable Vaishnava merchants pelting each other with coloured curd, cow-dung, mud, and such other delectable missiles. But to have a vivid idea of the wild delirium excited by this holiday, one has (in Bombay) to stand for an hour in the Márwári Bazar at Mumbádevi. He can there see what extraordinary social antics the usually sober, money-grubbing Marwari is capable of. How a crowd of these bháng[6]-intoxicated bacchanals will besiege a neighbour's Zenana, by way of a serenade, I suppose, and shout their rude amorous ditties in unmistakable language and with significant gestures and attitudes. The filthy epithets, the wanton glances, the obscene gestures, defy description;but these are rewarded, on the part of the dusky Márwáran, by equally shameless ogling and the squirting of red paint. This is the only holiday the stingy sojourner in Gujarát enjoys, according to his lights. Never is the morose Márwári more free, more frolicsome, more abandoned, than on this occasion.