Exploring Holi festival - the world's most vibrant color festival

Holi is one of India's oldest and most unique festivals. Holi colored powder throwing festival is usually held every year. This is also an ideal opportunity for tourists to visit and experience the unique features of Indian spiritual culture. Let's learn all about the Holi festival with Vietjet through this article.

1. What is the Holi Festival?

Holi, also known as the festival of throwing colored powder, the festival of colors, the festival of sharing love... is one of the important festivals of India and Nepal in particular and the Hindu community in the world in general. On the festival day, people will gather to sip sweet drinks, enjoy Thandai and happily throw colored powder on each other.

Holi festival marks the end of harsh winter to welcome spring full of life, with the hope of a bumper crop. In addition, Holi also symbolizes the joy of victory of good over evil.

Holi is one of the most expected festivals in India and among Hindus.

2. Finding out about the origin and meaning of Holi Colored Powder Festival

Holi festival comes from the legend of Holika Dahan. The story tells that, once upon a time, there was a demon king called Hiranyakashipu who was extremely evil. Hiranyakashipu proclaimed himself to be God and was not pleased that his son Prahlad worshiped Vishnu. Therefore, the demon king tried to kill his son many times to show his strength but failed. He asked his sister Holika, who was immune to fire, to punish Prahlad. Hiranyakashipu lit a big fire, told Holika to hug Prahlad and sit on the fire. Finally, the god Vishnu appeared, saved Prahlad and punished the demon Holika. The fire lit at the night of Choti Holi is believed by Hindus to be the fire that destroys darkness and demons and ghosts.

Green: Symbol of purity
Red: Symbolizes change and is the main color of the festival.
Orange: Symbol of happiness.

3. When does the Indian Festival of Color take place?

Holi colored powder festival takes place on the full moon day of the Phalgun month according to Hindu calendar every year (late February or early March) and lasts 2 to 16 days, depending on the cities of India.

Before the festival happens, Indian people have an extremely thorough and complete preparation, especially colored powder materials for use in the festival. Two days before Holi, all the central markets sell a variety of colored powders. In the evening, people will draw a circle with colored powder, pile firewood and flowers to burn, then start dancing and singing around it. In addition, people can also hold small parades with extremely beautiful colorful costumes at markets.

Holi is celebrated on the basis of India's own Hindu calendar

>> See more: solo travel to India: Exploring culture, finding out cheap airtickets

4. How is the Holi colored powder festival held?

Holi is an ancient Hindi festival with many unique cultural and religious rituals, as important as the Vietnamese traditional new year. The festival is held effervescently and on a large scale.

4.1 Preparation of Holika pyre

On the days before Holi takes place, the people of India will gather trees, wood and combustible materials to make a Holika pyre. This is one of the important traditional rituals at Holi. On the pyre there is an effigy representing the demon Holika - who tricked Prahalad to burn according to the legend.

4.2 Holika Dahan.

The first day of Holi is called Holika Dahan or Chhoti Holi. People will gather around Holika pyre after sunset to perform puja and light the pyre. People will even sing and dance around the burning pyre because it symbolizes the victory of good over evil.

Holika Dahan is a very important ritual performed on the first day of Holi

4.3 Parade with colors

Holi festival officially takes place the next morning and is also a time when people have fun, freely play with colors. People will hold dry colored powders, balls containing colored solutions in their hands to throw or spray colors at one another. People will gather in groups to sing and dance to the sound of drums and Dholak.

Whenever the color war stops, people will enjoy the traditional dishes of Gujiya, Mathri, Malpuas and drink Bhang, which is an integral part of the Holi colored powder festival.

4.4 Other variations of the festival

Holi can last for a week in parts of India, especially in the Braj region near Mathura. In these regions, people not only have fun with colors but also spend a special day performing another ritual. At that time, men will walk around shields, while women have the right to hit the shields with their sticks.

In the south of India, the Holi festival is considered as an occasion to worship and make offerings to the god Kamadeva - the God of love in Indian legend.

In the Braj region near Mathura, when men hold shields, women have the right to hit the shields with sticks during Holi.

4.5 Special Party

At the special party of Holi festival, families will make and enjoy Gujiya, which is a type of dumpling filled with khoya and dried fruit. The customary drink would be thandai. In addition, there are many other special dishes such as namkeen, papri chaat, ol gappe, kanji vada, dal kachori, dahi bhalle, chole bhature... Therefore, this is always an ideal opportunity for international visitors loving India to come to both experience the spiritual culture and enjoy the unique cuisine of this place.

4.6 At the end of the festival day

At the end of the day, people will take a bath and wear new clothes to welcome friends and relatives to visit.

5. Notes when participating in Holi colored powder festival in India

To participate in the Holi festival happily and safely, please note the following issues:

To avoid colored powder flying into your eyes, nose and mouth, you can apply oil on the body to make it difficult for the color to adhere to your skin.
Prepare lightweight clothes, sneakers to get around comfortably
With electronic devices such as telephones, cameras, please put them in a plastic bag or a specialized protective bag, to avoid being damaged by powder and water.
Pay attention to actions and taboos when joining the festival.
Holi is not a festival where thousands of people gather to throw colored powder at each other, but scattered all over the big and small streets,
Holi takes place all over India, but the most unique and busiest one is still in New Delhi.

Lưu ý khi tham gia lễ hội ném bột màu Holi

You can wear glasses to avoid the colored powder flying into your eyes causing discomfort when taking part in Holi

Beautiful and unique India will definitely be a great destination in your travel map. Vietjet currently has many flights to India with extremely good prices. You can travel to the country of “bollywood” whenever you want with Vietjet. Information about flights and special ticket prices are HERE.

Holi colored powder festival is one of the occasions that attracts many tourists to experience and is also the pride of the Indian people. The festival is held annually with a specific time, so visitors can conveniently arrange and book tickets early to travel.

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