Ode to a Keystone God

Today is Ganesha Chaturthi. In modern day terms, you could say, the birthday of one of the most beloved and well-known deities of the Hindu pantheon of Gods, without whose invocation and blessing no important work is ever begun, so much so that the Hindi idiom for inaugurating anything is “sriGanesha karna”!

We call him by many names, this Lord of All (Vinayaka), each one both a

Technorati Tags: Ganesha. Ganapati,Chaturthi,Elephant

paen and a prayer. Lambhodara or he of a belly large enough to accommodate the entire universe, the Giver of Boons (Varadavinayaka) and Knowledge (Vidyavaridhi), the Destroyer of Obstacles (Vighnavinashanaya, Vigneshwara). We have grown up listening to and reading the wonderful stories about him. The devoted son (Eshanputra, Rudrapriya Shambhavi, Gaurisuta), who not just lost a tusk defending his father from the wrath of the mighty Parasurama and thus became known as Ekdanta, but who also defined the meaning of filial love for all time to come by circling his parents when asked by them to circle the universe. The divine chronicler who, not happy to just be Vyasa’s stenographer, stipulated that he would do the job only if the sage recited the Mahabharata in one uninterrupted stretch and who in turn fulfilled Vyasa’s counter condition that in that uninterrupted flow, he would not write down anything that he did not understand. (It was in these conditions that the Mahabharata was completed in 3 years!)

And so naturally, this infinte repository of wisdom (Buddhinath, Buddhipriya, Buddhividhata) became the consort of not just Buddhi but also Siddhi, worshipped ever since as not just Vinayaka but Siddhivinayaka. But perhaps the most popular story is the one of how our Lord Ganesha got his elephant head (Gajanana, Gajakarna, Gajananeti). There are many versions and I must confess that my own favourite is the one about him standing guard for his mother Parvati. But as I searched for and read all the versions, I couldn’t help wondering. Why an elephant head and why not that of some other animal?

I know that there will be many answers to this, most of them from religious scholars steeped in erudition and learning. But, I’d like to think of a slightly different – to many, even sacrilegious perhaps – answer and it has to do with the magnificence and wonder of the elephant as an animal and its unique place and importance on our planet.

Just by virtue of its size, the elephant is an awe-inspiring creature; jungle celebrity, a must have for any self-respecting zoo or maharajah’s stable. (In Mysore, the famed Dussera exhibition is unthinkable without the elephants and the mighty Balarama to carry the Goddess Chamundeshwari in the golden howdah!) Naturally, since it is the largest living land animal, weighing anything from 2300 kgs (Asian elephant) to a mind-boggling 6300 to 7300 kg (African elephant) and growing up to 13 feet tall. To keep such a body fit and in shape, it spends 75% of its day eating; chewing all 400 kgs of that food with just 4 teeth!

But the elephant’s size, you could say, is the least spectacular part of this fabulous creature. Look at the trunk – with over 40,000 muscles it’s an astonishingly sensitive and sophisticated multi-tasking organ. It can smell a human at more than 1.5 kilometers, figure out if a thing is rough or smooth, hot or cold, work as a snorkel, allowing the elephant to easily swim underwater, even caress and fondle and ….hold your breath, people - pick up a feather or a pin with the greatest of ease!

All of us walking around with cellphones and marveling at how clever we humans have got, consider this. Elephants communicate via low-frequency "infrasound," below the range of human hearing. In the right weather conditions, these sounds may carry for over a 100 square miles! Till scientists discovered this, they could never figure out how suddenly elephants would congregate around a dead or a wounded member of the clan.

But it’s the non-physical aspect of the elephant that makes it a truly amazing animal.

Remember the old saying that “elephants never forget”? Well, it’s true and the elephant stores inside its head an astounding amount of information on which hinges the survival of not just the elephant but also of the entire ecosystem in which it lives - a constantly updated encyclopedia of migration routes, food sites, emergency water sources in case of drought etc. This incredible memory bank combined with extraordinary intelligence makes the elephant what is known as a “keystone” species. The keystone is the middle stone at the top of a stone arch, holding the other stones in place. Pull out the keystone and the arch will collapse, which is pretty much what happens to an ecosystem if its keynote species dies.

Let’s see how this is in the case of the elephant.

The African elephant lives on the beautiful, rolling grasslands (savannahs) of Africa. But without the elephant that keeps the other vegetation in check by feeding on them, the grass would disappear, replaced by forest. And with no grass to feed on, the antelopes would vanish. And with them would disappear Africa’s pride – the great carnivores like the lion, the leopard and the cheetah. And that’s not the only reason why the elephant is called a keystone species. Both the African or Asian elephants (the only 2 surviving species) find and dig waterholes and forge trails, which virtually all other animals in the region - including humans, like the pygmies of Congo - depend on, especially during periods of drought. Many species of forest trees depend on the elephant for seed dispersal because only it can crack open the hard thick shells which are sometimes ¼ inch thick. Without the elephant, as much as 40% of trees species in some African forests would vanish.

So take away the elephant and entire ecosystems – grasslands and forests in Asia and Africa teeming with the most fabulous array of animal and plant wildlife – will disappear. It’s already happening. In 1930, there were between 5 and 10 million African elephants. Today, there are less than 600,000. At the turn of the 20^th century, there were an estimated 200,000 Asian elephants. Today there are probably no more than 35,000 to 40,000 left and the elephant has been declared an endangeredspecies

But however small and dwindling their number, while they still roam our planet, it thrives. So, no wonder then that it was the elephant’s head that became the head of our Lord Ganesha. So this Ganesha Chaturthi, let us ask this Divine Granter of Boons to give us the ability to live with intelligence and humility and grace, the wisdom to understand what is of true and lasting value, the desire to put back into the Divine kitty at least a small fraction of what we take. Let us ask this Vignavinashaka to destroy the obstacles of greed and smallness of vision so that when we look around, we see the infinite expanse of Nature in which there is room for everyone and enough to go around eternally, with some left over.

Happy Ganesha Chaturthi!

*

A Christmas Truce

It was December 24th, 1914. Christmas Eve.
Across hundreds of miles in Ypres in Belgium, the Germans troops lay in their trenches and within shouting distance, was the enemy – the Allied soldiers made up of the French, Belgian, British and the Canadian.
Already, the toll of this trench war had mounted to about a million men, frozen bodies strewn between the trenches.
Suddenly, the strangest thing began to happen. The German soldiers began to place lighted candles on the Christmas trees that they had in their trenches and singing Christmas carols. Seeing this, the Allied soldiers began to sing too and shout Christmas greetings across the trenches to the Germans.
What followed was perhaps one of the strangest and the most beautiful events in the history of war ….and peace. The shooting stopped and unarmed soldiers came out of the trenches on both sides to shake hands, salutes and even gifts….
It continued into Christmas day and the peace was so “scary” that the commanding officers on both sides threatened the “peace-mongers” with court martial …..but no one seemed to care!
And the carol that probably set off the whole event?
“Silent Night, Holy Night”.
I found this story while surfing YouTube for recordings of this composition…..which is when I stumbled on a recording of Walter Cronkite narrating the story as he hosts the Mormon’s Tabernacle Choir’s Christmas concert. As Cronkite points out, it’s extraordinary how almost 100 years later, this still holds so much meaning – that we humans never learn, not even from the lessons history puts in front of us and that peace is always possible, even in the most impossible circumstances.
I also found on a rendering of this incredible composition by none other than the greta Mahila Jackson. The two versions are radically different but no matter how many times I hear this music, no matter who sings it or performs it, it always makes my hair stand on end and at the same time fills my heart with a peace so beautiful it make me want to weep.
I am giving below the links to both the recordings – please, please do listen.






So, I know I am a day late but methinks its never to late to be wishing that this peace will fill all your hearts, my dear friends, and also the hearts of the people that are right now filled with so much hate and fear!

Merry Christmas!

The Goddess Flower

Once again, it is that wonderful time of the year...when we celebrate the Devi Festival - Durag Puja to some, Navratri to other and in my part of the world, Dussera.

So, this is a piece about Her favourite flower

The Goddess Flower
By Ratna Rajaiah

It’s rare that someone so gorgeous is also so easy-gping I mean, it grows just anywhere, needs no mollycoddling other than large splashes of sunshine and water, flowers spectacularly and lavishly throughout the year and because of that, attracts lovely birds and butterflies. And if all that wasn’t enough, it is an ancient and legendary cosmetic, medicine and is currently being researched to possibly become India's first herbal contraceptive! (More on that later.) I speak of course of the hibiscus. Cousin to cotton and lady’s fingers (bhindi), there are around 2200 varieties of this gorgeous flowering plant and the variety that grows in such abundance in our country is the Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Or the hibiscus that is the rose of China, probably because its association with China is a very old one. But no less than it is with India…

The Goddess flower
“Swargapavargada shuddha japapushpa nibhakrutih….”
This is the 147th stotra of the Lalitha Sahasranama which roughly translates as “Who bestows the eternal bliss of Swarga, Who is pure, Whose colour is of the nature of japa flowers…” So, it is but natural that the hibiscus (japapushpa, japakusuma, japaphool or the prayer flower) is the primary flower of worship for the Devi. (In many places like Maharashtra, it is also the flower most offered to Lord Ganesha.) And equally naturally, one so favoured by the Devi is blessed with much goodness and healing, which is why the hibiscus is also called “rogapushpa” is Sanskrit! So, for centuries, in almost every continent, almost all parts of the hibiscus plant has been used as medicine. In Bangladesh, China, Peru, Trinidad and Vietnam the flowers are used to regulate menstruation, in Malaysia the roots to treat venereal diseases, in Fiji and Japan for diarrhea and in Kuwait, it is even used as an aphrodisiac! In Ayurveda, the flowers, roots and leaves is used in pancha karma therapy, the flowers as a blood purifier and according to the ancient Indian lexicons on medicinal herbs (Nighantu Granthas) like Raja Nighantu, Bhava Prakasha Nighantu and Shodala Nighantu, to treat a whole host of ailments from coughs and fevers to insomnia, even hypertension.
But its most popular use, both in Ayurveda and traditional medicine, is in the treatment of gynacelogical problems like excessive and painful menstruation, vaginal and uterine discharges, menstrual irregularities etc. And the hibiscus’ greatest significance and one that has serious long-term implications for women the world over is its potential as the world’s first herbal oral female contraceptive! Research carried out in the last 10 years, initially at the College of Ayurveda and College of Medical Sciences at Varanasi, and later by the ICMR Task Force on Anti-Fertility Plants has given clear indications of this. Not at all surprising because the Yogaratnakar says, "The lady who takes the paste of the Jabakusum in rice water mixed with molasses for three days does not become pregnant” and in traditional medicine, it has been used as a contraceptive for hundreds of years in many places in India like Kerala and Assam.
Actually, the hibiscus’ healing powers may not be all that surprising if you consider the fact the hibiscus flower is good sources of beta-carotene and flavanoids (flagged by its gorgeous colours) and also contains calcium, phosphorus, iron, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin C. Which is why, apart from being a medicinal plants, the flowers are made into drinks, salads, teas, curries, pickles and the leaves are even used as a substitute to spinach!

Crowning glory!
The hibiscus flower, seemingly sent by the Devi on a special mission to look after us women, has also quite a reputation for making hair beautiful, black and healthy. So, loaded with all those nutritional goodies and natural emollients which makes the hair soft and promotes hair growth, the hibiscus works its wonders as shampoo, hair oil, hair tonic, hair conditioner, hair dye, as treatment for all kinds of hair problems including premature graying, dandruff – and since we don’t want the men feeling left out - even balding. So, as you can see, there’s not much that the hibiscus can’t do, hair wise. Which is why every grandmother has her own favourite hibiscus hair oil recipe and many Ayurvedic hair oil formulations contain hibiscus including the famous brahmi amla hair oil. Incidentally, the reason why hibiscus flowers are used as hair dye is because when crushed, they yield a dark purplish dye. Which served as not just hair colouring but also as shoe polish (hence the hibiscus’ other name- shoe flower!) and as mascara, darkening the eyelashes of the ladies all over the Far East, where the hibiscus occupies ancient place of honour…..

Asia’s darling
The hibiscus is truly a flower of the Orient, making its presence felt not just with its glorious colours beautifying every countryside from China to Hawai but also as trusted medicine, cosmetic, even symbol of statehood.
Chengdu is China’s 4th largest city, capital of the Siachun province and an ancient administrative and cultural center, tracing its existence back to at least 3000 years ago. It is also famous for Chinese brocade….and hibiscus! In the 10th century, the then ruler, Mengchang, ordered the planting of hibiscus on the fortress wall surrounding the city. The walls have crumbled but the hibiscus remain and ever since, Chengdu is referred as the City of Hibiscus with the hibiscus still its symbol. The hibiscus appears on famous 14th century Ming dynasty Chinese porcelain dynasty (1368–1644) and on ancient Chinese silk tapestries.
The hibiscus is also is the national flower of Malaysia. Like China, India and many other Asian countries, the flower grows in abundance throughout Malaysia So, in 1960, when Malaysia's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, looked for a flower to be the appropriate symbol of his newly independent country, the hibiscus was a natural choice. And he chose not just any hibiscus but the scarlet five-petaled Hibiscus rosa sinensis or Bunga Raya (our very own Goddess flower!) because the colour red represented courage and the 5 petals symbolized the 5 principles of nationhood for Malaysia – unity, democracy, justice, progress and secularism. The official crest of Sarawak, one of the states in East Malaysia features 2 beautiful scarlet hibiscus.Two other varieties of the hibiscus are the state flowers of of South Korea (Hibiscus syriacus or "Rose of Sharon") and Hawaii (Hibiscus brackenridgei).
The curry leaf, the neem, turmeric, coconut, amla…..and the hibiscus. In India, we are so blessed by Mother Nature that we often take much her wonderful bounty for granted, often forgetting their fabulous healing powers are just there in our gardens and backyards. The hibiscus is such a common sight in our countryside, growing so easily and eagerly that we almost pay no attention to it. But as you can see, it is no ordinary flower….
I end with the story of Harriet. Last November, she celebrated her birthday, which was a milestone of sorts. You see, though it is rude to tom-tom a lady’s age, especially one of such vinatge, it seems the birthday was Harriet’s 175th! Which even by tortoise standards is a great age to achieve and makes her the oldest living animal in the world. Did I say “tortoise”? Yup, Harriet is a giant Galápagos tortoise and lives in the Australia Zoo in Queensland, Australia. But it’s not just Harriet’s age that makes her famous. In 1835, when Harriet was just 5 years old, Charles Darwin visited Isla Santa Cruz, Harriet’s home in the Galapagos Islands. So fascinated was he by her and her tribe, that when he left to return to England soon after, he took Harriet and two of her friends with him as subjects of scientific research. It is said Darwin’s observations about Harriet and the Galápagos tortoises contibuted significantly in his formulating that his theory of evolution! (Harriet left England for Australia two years later and has lived there ever since.)
Why am I telling you all this? Because as part of her birthday celebrations, the zoo had a giant tortosie shaped cake (naturally!) and Harriet was fed a lavish helping of…….bright pink hibiscus flowers!
"We gave her hibiscus flowers because that's her favourite food," said the zoo's Laura Campbell. "She's in fabulous health and there's no reason to think she can't live to 200." (Apparently, the hibiscus is not just Harriet’s favourite chowder, but all tortoises’!)
Sources: Medicinal Flowers by Gyanendra Pandey, Ayurveda, the Secrets of healing by Maya Tiwari, Wikipedia, the HumanFlower Project and other websites

******
Hibiscus hair oil
Over low heat, warm 150-200 ml of coconut or gingelly oil and add 10-12 freshly plucked red hibiscus flowers. Simmer until all the water from the flowers evaporates making sure NOT to let the mixture boil or burn the oil, as too much heat will destroy goodness in the hibiscus. Remove from heat - the oil would have turned a dark purply-pink. Cool and store in a clean dry jar.

Hibiscus Cooler

30-40 single red hibiscus blooms
1 litre/2 pints/4 cups boiling water
freshly squeezed lime juice
sugar to taste
Take about 30 freshly picked single red hibiscus flowers, preferably from your own garden so you know they are not contaminated by chemical sprays. Remove the calyx and the centre pistil and put only the petals into a heatproof bowl. Pour 4-6 cups of boiling water over the petals, cover and leave to cool. Strain and discard the petals - the liquid will be a pretty, clear pink. Add strained lime juice and sugar to taste and serve as a refreshing beverage. Said to have blood purifying properties. It may also be served as a hot drink after a shorter steeping time.
From Charmaine Solomon's Encyclopedia of Asian Food.

********

The red flag of romance!
In ancient Egypt, hibiscus flowers were associated with lust so much so that the Egyptians believed that tea made with red hibiscus flowers and sepals could induce licentious cravings in women. As a result, for many centuries Egyptian women were forbidden to drink hibiscus tea!
In some Caribbean countries Hibiscus flowers are often carried as wedding bouquets because they are believed to ward off bad omens. “The flowers of the brilliant Red Hibiscus native to Hawaii (Hibiscus kokio) were worn by men to send messages to women. Worn behind the right ear, they meant, “I am married”; behind the left ear, “I am single and looking for a lover.” If a flower was worn behind both ears the message was clear: “I am married, but looking for another lover”! (Flowers are for Love by Kathy Lamancusa.)

Colours of Joy

The Colours of Joy
By Ratna Rajaiah


Chaitrotsava.
Phagwa.
Madhutsava.
Madanamahotsava.
Kamotsava
Sirapanchami.
Rangapanchami.
Or then, simply Holi.
Tomorrow, much of India is going to be drenched in riotous colour and music and dance as we celebrate what is popularly known as the festival of colours. And no, I am not going to talk about the health hazards of coloured powders that are used these days to play Holi.
Nor rave and rant about the rude, impolite, often nasty practices that have crept in like using mud and cow dung and oil paint, even sewage. Nor hold forth about celebrating Holi the organic way. Though being a die-hard New Age type, I will touch upon the subject!
Instead, I ask you to walk with me and discover the many wonderful and little known aspects of Holi, in the hope that we will thus capture the magic of one of the happiest, most joyous and glorious festivals that dot our calendar.
Phagun aayo re!
“ketaki gulab juhi champaka….”
Phalguna. One of Arjuna’s many names because he was born in this month - Phalguna or Phagun.
And what a month! When the earth, getting ready for summer, shrugs off the last remaining sluggishness of winter and sidles up to the sun. Who, rather pleased by this attention, warms and coaxes everything to lustily, merrily sprout and bud and flower and hatch and breed and turn from withered ol’ brown to lush new green. A heady, rapturous, enchanting month, where mango blossoms burst forth like torches of lace, kissed here and there by tiny green baby mangoes.
So Phagun marks the beginning of what they call spring. But we have a much better name for this season in India – Vasant or Basant, a season so heady that we even have a couple of ragas dedicated to it! And Phagun is also the month when we celebrate Holi because of which it is also called Phagwa or Phalgunotsava. Or then, more appropriately, Vasantotsav - the festival of spring.
Colour me Red!
Think about it. Holi is the only festival which we “play”. And so, how can we speak of Holi and not talk about colour? Colours that we steal from Mother Nature, decking herself up in her spring finery, to joyously splash each other with.
Scarlet from the hibiscus, purple from the jamun fruit, yellow from the lemon and the sun, blue from a hot summer sky, and green from the parrot’s wing and the cheeky green chili. And saffron from…..
Actualy, Nature was the source of the colours with which Holi was played in ancient times. “Gulal”, the Hindi word which today refers to all the Holi coloured powders, was originally the kesar (saffron-colour)coloured powder made from the dried flowers of a tree.
A tree appropriately called the “Flame of the Forest”, because its velvety flowers (shaped like a parrot’s beak which is why it is also called the parrot tree) are a breathtaking, blazing orange that virtually “set light” the place where they grow. And with Nature’s impeccable timing, the trees burst into flame…er, I mean burst bloom flowers, in February, staying on nearly to the end of April!It is said that Lord Krishna played Holi with this very same "gulal".

But the Palasha tree (as it is called in Sanskrit and Hindi) is not just a pretty face.
First let me tell you the rather charming legend about it. Considered sacred to the moon, it is said to have come to life when the feather of a falcon was dipped into soma, the nectar of the Gods. And so, it came to be considered is a sacred tree, an integral part of many Hindu religious ceremonies, the trifoliate formation of the leaves said to represent the Holy Triumvirate, Vishnu in the middle, Brahma on the left and Shiva on the right.
But legend apart, this tree (botanical name : Butea Monosperma and Butea Frondosa is the rare Indian variety with yellow flowers), also called the Dhak or Bastard Teak, has many uses. The tree acts as a host for the lac insect which produces lac, the base ingredient for shellac and varnish. All parts of it are used in Ayurveda for panchakarma therapies and in Unani medicine. The dried leaves are used to make plates and cups and for wrapping tobacco to make biddies.
And of course, come the month of Phagun, thousands of the flowers are dried and then ground to produce the gorgeous Holi powder called ‘gulal’…..
Ancient Holi
A spring festival has to be as old as…well, as old as spring itself, but Holi is celebrated for other reasons as well. Here are two of the most popular ones:
The demon king Hiranyakasipu’s hatred Lord Vishnu for killing elder his brother Hiranyaksa was so great that he wanted to destroy his own son Prahlad. Because despite his father’s best efforts, he had turned out to be Lord Vishnu’s most ardent devotee and continued to be so despite the most terrible tortures heaped upon him by his father. Hiranyakasipu’s sister Holika had been given the boon that fire could not destroy her. So, Hiranyakasipu ordered that Holika sit with the child Prahlad in a huge bonfire. When she did, the fire destroyed Holika and the child was unharmed. And so Holi is celebrated – like so many other festivals– as the triumph of good over evil.
One of Holi’s lesser known names is Anangotsava. Ananga means “without a body”. When Kamadeva, spurred by Lord Indra to make Lord Shiva fall in love with Parvati, shot an arrow in Siva's heart as he sat deep in meditation, the enraged Maheshwara opened his third eye and reduced poor Kamadeva to ashes. And so, Kamadeva got another name - “Ananga”, and the occasion is celebrated as Kamavilas, Kaman Pandigai or Kama-dahanam (or Madanamahotsava meaning the Festival of Kama), especially in many parts of South India.
I know. We’re all thinking - is being reduced to ashes is a reason to celebrate or a reason to mourn? Well, it is said the festiva honours Kamadeva’s selfless sacrifice for the cause of true love! And the traditional offerings to this God of Love are sandalwood paste to soothe the agony of his burns and mango blossoms which apparently are his favorite flower.
Incidentally, the story also has a happy ending because after he was so devastatingly incinerated, Kamadeva’s wife Rati, prayed to Lord Siva to restore her husband to life. Siva was placated by Rati’s prayers and arranged so that Kamadeva be reborn as Lord Krishna’s son by his wife Rukmini.
Krishna’s festival
No discussion on Holi can be complete without talking about Lord Krishna. Because, the most evocative, sensuous, rapturous, enchanting images of Holi are that of Lord Krishna playing Holi with his beloved Radha and the gopis. In Mathura, Holi festivities, even to this day, extend over 16 days and are centred around Lord Krishna’s birthplace, Nandgaon and Radha’s birthplace, Barsana.
There is even a beautiful lake called Gulal Kund!
These images have been repeatedly captured and celebrated in art and poetry and theatre and dance. And been the inspiration for the genesis of a very beautiful genre of Hindustani classical music called hori or compositions about Holi, sung in a very ancient style of singing called dhamar, dating back to the 13th century. When the great musical geniuses of Swami Haridas, Baba Gopal Das, Tansen and Baiju Bawra were taking dhrupad singing to its finest glory, the hori was also coming into its own.
In fact, hori songs were performed with great gusto in the court of that famed royal patron of music, Emperor Akbar. And typically, all hori compositions are about the mischievous, irresistible Krishna, cavorting with his Radha, among the gopis, drenching them not just with his favourite colour, kesari, but also with love!
“Khele shyam sangh hori aaj, bhar pichakari rang bhar kesar ke” .
And so, befittingly, the last words on this festival of colour must be those of that other ardent devotee of Lord Krishna, Meera Bai. This is one of her compositions and depending on how you want to look at it, it’s a bhajan or a hori geet, or a romantic song or then an impassioned cry of a beloved’s heart describing the colours of love.
Because, at the end of it, that is what Holi is – a celebration of love. Happy Holi!
Syama piya more rangade chunariya
Aisi rangade ke ranga nahi chhute
Dhobiya dhoye chahe yeh sari umaria
Lal na rangaun main, hari na rangaun
Apne hi ranga mein rangade chunariya
Bina rangaye main to ghar nahi jaungi
Beet hi jaye chahe yeh sari umariya
My beloved Shyam, color my dupatta
Colour it so the colours will never leave
Even if the dhobi washes it a lifetime
But I won’t be coloured red
Nor green,
Colour me in only shades of you
Without being thus suffused by you, I will not leave
Even if I lose a lifetime….

******
Hori or Holi?
The musicologists say that the word “holi” got corrupted to “hori” because it is easier to pronounce while singing. Lord Krishna’s bhakts say it was originally “hori” or happiness in Brajbhasha, a dialect of Hindi.

In Bengal and Orissa, Holi is celebrated as Dol Jatra or Dol Purnima to mark the birth of the great singing saint, Mahaprabhu Chaitanya

******