The celebrations of Holi, the annual festival of colors for the arrival of spring, began in India, free for the first time in three years from the weight of the coronavirus and heavily celebrated on Tuesday in Vrindavan, called “the city of widows” in Uttar Pradesh (north).
About 2,000 widows live in the city. Their ultra-conservative families, mostly poor, separated them after the death of their husbands. The idea of widows participating in some kind of celebration was still poorly perceived a decade ago, but this year they were able to enjoy it again.
“We were discouraged that we had not been able to celebrate Holi due to the coronavirus in the past two years,” Shakuntala Davi, a 72-year-old widow, told AFP. “We are so happy now that there is no confinement. I don't have words to explain my joy,” he added.
Holi, which announces the end of winter and the victory of good over evil, is celebrated with street parties, water battles, music, jets of brightly colored pigments and all kinds of ancestral rituals.
Shakuntala Davi and 100 other widows danced, sang Hindu hymns and were sprinkled with colored pigments and flower petals in the city's Gopinath temple.
“I am very happy to have celebrated Holi. A lot of people came. It was a total happiness,” Tulasi Rani, another widow, told AFP.
Holi celebrations, in which millions of people participate each year, will peak on Friday, when it will be a holiday throughout the country.
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