INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
KATHMANDU, MARCH 17People in Kathmandu valley and hilly districts celebrated Holi, the festival of colours, which is
also known as Fagu Purnima, with religious fervour today.
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Revellers, young and old alike, celebrated the festival by smearing colourful
powder and throwing colours and water-filled balloons at each other.
The festival will be celebrated in the Tarai region
tomorrow.Holi marks the end of winter and also the victory of good over evil
The festival drew huge crowds in the streets this time as the COVID-19 pandemic and government restrictions had dampened the festive mood of
revellers in the previous two years.Police said the celebration was largely peaceful in the valley.However, some miscreants were found to
have disturbed the peace by hurling balloons filled with dirty water from rooftops and windows of their houses, inflicting minor injuries on
pedestrians.The law enforcement agency had appealed to all the denizens to celebrate the festival in a decent manner.Police had stepped up
security checking across the valley as figures of the past few years showed that Holi festival was likely to witness more accidents than
normal days due to drink-driving, overspeeding and recklessness.According to Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, it detained around 1,000
vehicles, mostly motorcycles, for violating traffic rules in the name of the festival
Earlier, it had warned against driving under the influence, driving rough, zig-zagging the bike, riding bike without helmet and carrying
more than one pillion rider and violating other traffic rules
Similarly, 106 drivers were caught driving under the influence.The festival revolves around the mythology of the demon king Hiranya
Kashyapu, who ordered his sister Holika to enter a fire along with Pralhad, son of the demon king and a devout follower of Lord Vishnu, in
her lap so that Pralhad would stop chanting the name of the lord
The catch was that Holika would not burn in the fire due to a boon she had received from god
But the fire burnt Holika, whereas Pralhad reremained unharmed and came out of the fire still chanting the name of god
The festival is linked to this legend and is celebrated by smearing colour in enjoyment.A version of this article appears in the print on
March 18, 2022, of The Himalayan Times
This article first appeared/also appeared in https://thehimalayantimes.com