As I write this, on a chilly March day in Chicago, millions of people are celebrating festivals welcoming the beginning of spring. Zoroastrians, Iranians, Afghans, and many others are celebrating Nowruz, the New Year. Jews are celebrating Purim. And across the Indian subcontinent today, people are celebrating Holi — the festival of colors!
Holi has been celebrated for hundreds of years in South Asia, if not earlier. The Sanskrit poet and playwright Kalidasa, who lived in the 4th-5th centuries CE, mentions spring festivals dedicated to Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love and desire. Today, Holi is associated primarily with Krishna, who is said to have played Holi with the gopis (cowherd girls) of Brindavan. Some have argued that the modern celebration of Holi with colors originated in the Punjabi city of Multan, now located in Pakistan. Holi is one of the least “religious” Hindu festivals, and it’s a well known fact that many Muslim rulers of the subcontinent, including the Mughals, celebrated Holi with gusto.
Holi has inspired, and continues to inspire, music and dance traditions all over South Asia — in fact, in Bollywood, there’s a distinct category of “Holi songs”! In this post, I want to share three Holi-related songs that I find particularly interesting. Hope you enjoy, and happy Holi!
A Gender-Bending Hori
The first song I want to share is a hori — a genre of traditional folk songs that are specifically sung and performed around Holi. They fall within the thumri genre of Hindustani music, a “classical” music tradition of North India. These songs are generally in the Braj Bhasha or Awadhi languages, and they’re usually about Krishna and the gopis (particularly Radha). This article describes horis as such:
“thumri places a lot of importance on its poetry … The poetic play of words and their embellishment as the singer often repeats lyrical phrases in different emotive and melodic ways to emphasize the meaning and Alankaars (poetic ornamentation). The ragas are usually of lighter moods, such as Khamaaj, Kaafi, Des, Piloo, Gara, Pahaadi, Bhairavi. Often, the melodic structure of the thumri is only loosely based on the specific raga, hence is referred to as “Mishra” (mixed) raga. The tempo could be slow, medium or fast-paced … The Hori Thumris are most often based on the romance of Krishna and Radha. They talk about their play and pranks with colors during Holi. The gamut of emotions could vary to embarrassment, sulking, jealousy, and heartbreak as well.”
This hori is narrated from the point of view of a gopi, who is talking about how she’s going to play Holi with Krishna: she’ll turn his dark skin red with powder and she’ll dance with him.
Something I want to draw particular attention to is the line saying that she’ll dress Krishna up as a woman, and dance with him. Krishna dressing up as a woman (also known as stri-vesha) is actually fairly common as a poetic and artistic image across the subcontinent.
Nikhil, etc. 