Sunday, March 18, 2001		Article

‘HOLI HAI’ ! The clarion-call of the festival of colours reverberates throughout the Gulf amongst Indians — the biggest segment of expatriates — be it in Dubai, Doha or Bahrain.

While the first Holi of the new millennium is being celebrated in India, my mind goes back to the celebrations I enjoyed in the Gulf on three successive occasions in the last decade of the last millennium.

The first was in Doha (Qatar) in the early 90s. Indians number about 1 lakh — almost 1/5th of the total of Qatari population.

Qatar, like U.A.E., Bahrain etc., has a liberal outlook and a unique sensitivity of others’ religious leanings. Indians enjoy religious freedom in a large measure. Therefore, the Indian community celebrates Holi every year in the protected precincts of Indian clubs, or the Indian Embassy premises (Ambassadors’ house) or private houses. They wear the choicest Lakhnavi chicken kurtas and Banarasi sarees and play with natural gulal. No water balloons are used. But pichchkaris (water pumps) are sparingly and discreetly used to spray clear water.

People from all strata of society mix with each other easily and freely. The bigwigs — Manu Chabbarias and Jagatianis of Dubai, Jashanmals and Kewalrams of Bahrain, Haiders and Kanjanis of Doha — happily embrace Banta Singhs and Sameuls — ordinary workers in construction companies. From Keralites to Kashmiris, Pandits to Parsis, Gujjus to Punjjus everybody celebrates Holi with a gusto.

Indians in the Gulf have developed their own brand of Holi, as I discovered in my subsequent participation in the festival. Holi has gone pop in Dubai. Gulal Holi is the order of the day. DJs make an appearance in the evening celebrations. Mouth-watering gujiyas and delicious Indian food is available for everyone to enjoy. Delicious and daintiest sweets from Ghantewala (Chandni Chowk, Delhi), chappan bogh of Bombay, burfi, kala jaman, sandesh etc are eaten with relish. Continental and Chinese cuisine is also served in plenty. Alcohol replaces bhang. The traditional dance of gopis and Krishna of Mathura is replaced by Gujarati Dandiya, and western dances. Women are decked in ghagras and cholis. Men and women dance to the beat of the dhols, but they also gyrate to pop music.

Holi milan evening starts with a short speech by an Arab VIP (Arabs do join in small numbers to show their solidarity with Indians. The evening features some songs religious, patriotic and popular Hindi film songs. Folk dances from Gujarat, Punjab and other places followed by cultural shows. The finale is always the bhangra dance performed by tall, hefty turbaned Sikhs clad in ethnic clothes.

The festival is a lot like the people who celebrate it — warm, generous and boisterous. Indians in the Gulf celebrate Holi in their home away from home and remember times of golden harvest of abundant crops and prosperity back home.