What make people celebrate Holi in Mumbai?

Holi is usually mis-interpreted as ‘Festival of colors’. Rangapanchami which is celebrated on the next day of Holi or on the 5th day is actually a ‘Festival of colors’. Ranga = color and Panchami = 5th day. The main purpose of Holi is to welcome the summer. After extreme cold days of winter, people welcome the summer season by lighting a fire and assuming it as a god they perform its Pooja. We offer coconut, sweet Pruanpoli (a typical Maharashtrian sweet dish cooked specially on this day) to that fire and request him to cool down his anger and protect us all human beings from fire.

In Mumbai too, we celebrate Holi every year. It makes me wonder what makes Mumbaikars welcome summer so desperately. If you ask me, Mumbai has only two seasons – summer and rainy. What we Mumbaikar call winter season is considered as summer season in most of the part of the world. Mumbai’s has average of 27.2°C temperature. In winter, the day highs hover around 32.0°C. The nights in winter do not fall below 18 °C. And still we are eager to welcome summer.

In spite of sweating profusely, we light up fire and welcome summer season. I still wonder what makes us do this. Just because it’s been celebrated for years together, we Mumbaikar celebrate it as an essential and important festival. We Mumbaikars should replace this festival with something to welcome winter season. Just like we lit a fire to welcome summer, we should have snow and artificial winds to welcome winter season. Now that sound so Kool !!!