In the past it was believed that trains were too fast for the soul because it cannot follow at that speed. Nowadays you fly from one climate zone to another. Yesterday we were still freezing on the ski lift, today we sweat at 33 degrees Celsius in the shade. What kind of stress is that for the soul?
When you come home after a nice holiday, you often have a bland feeling. You have to work again, get back into everyday life. It’s called post-travel depression. What is it like when you travel longer and abruptly move to the next country? Is that what you get?
Exactly one day we have time to adapt to the new circumstances. The heat in Jodhpur, the so-called blue city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, is bearable because it is very dry. Only I’m not allowed to wear shorts again as a man. But there are some tourists wearing them, but I don’t have the guts yet. Arrival 28 February, on March 1st and 2nd the annual Holi festival will take place. The people here are completely different, at the beginning we miss the warmth of the Iranians. Post-travel depression! Dinner at a better Indian restaurant and the first real beer in four weeks raise our spirits.
The next morning we also reconcile with the people. Big radiant children’s eyes let our soul follow at a fast pace, as if it were stretched on a rubber band.
It’s time to start the Holi festival. The color spectacle, in which you throw and smear paint powder, begins the evening before with bonfires welcoming the spring. The fire is supposed to burn the demons and express the victory of good over evil. We are invited to our host family and visit the brother’s family first. There we find the first taste of the feast: sweets and spicy rice. Then it goes to the fire and finally dinner in our house. There is also vegetable rice and vegetarian sauces with chickpeas. Very tasty, we can’t eat another bite.
In the morning we get up early and put on old clothes. This is difficult in our tightly equipped repertoire of things. We both bought some cheap pants that we can screw up. After only a few steps it starts. The first batch of green and red is painted on our cheeks. We quickly find out that it’s not just powder. Some families have upgraded with (color) water bombs and there are water guns anyway. This is where action must be taken, we decide to go into arms race and get pink powder.
In between we join groups of brightly painted young people and dance to overloaded Indian pop music. Again and again Indians come on their moped or on foot and shout “Happy Holi” and rub more paint on our hair and face. In the end, we get a full load of water bombs too. The colors have arrived in all the cracks of the body. Yet so peaceful and cheerful.
While outside music is still playing all over the city, our shower looks like our faces earlier. Almost everything goes off, only one color doesn’t want to leave the face. Pink!
