What went down? A while ago, I posted this incredible mystery pic. I’d usually never post a pic without knowing what it was or who took it, but the kick ass colours and mood were too much for me to ignore…

Thanks to a post at one of my absolute favourite blogs, COLOURlovers, and an email from Jessica at Thoughts Punctuated,  it turns out the picture was taken at what has to be the most chromatic, singularly beautiful religious celebration in the world: Holi, or the Festival of Colours. In early March, India and other countries with big Hindu populations usher in spring and represent the triumph of good over evil with what basically amounts to a national multi-coloured water fight in the street. People head out of their houses and cover each other in coloured paints, powders, waters, and dyes. It’s the literal, visual interpreatation of the colourful re-birth of spring come to life on people’s bodies. How rad is that?

I started doing some research and found a whole series of pics, including the mystery pic, on Desi Nuts and learned that the photographer of the mystery pic is Poras Chaudhary.  Here are some more of Chaudhary’s sensational pics of Holi:

We’ve got joy. We’ve got happy. We’ve got colours. We’ve got smiling, happy, joyous people running through the streets rubbing colours on each other. It’s a photographic dream. The pictures from Holi are some of the purest I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how I’ve lived without Holi in my life for so long. Each March I’ve been hiding little chocolate eggs, watching bunny rabbits, and then eating a ham. Meanwhile they’re tearing off their clothes, getting communally hosed down by a gigantic orange-dyed fire hose, and rubbing paint all over each other. I have proof – check this shit out:

Even worse, all the eggs I’ve been hiding are pastel. PASTEL! Pastels are the second place of colours. The almost-colours. The kissing your sister of colours. The one number off winning the jackpot of colours. Yes, pastels are the blue balls of colours. So close, and yet no chromatic climax.

The colours at Holi are life itself: acidic, clashing, screaming, yearning, vibrant. These are colours that say we are celebrating some serious stuff: Life, Goodness, Joy. Pastels celebrate the increased seasonal sales of Cadbury Mini-Eggs.

I’m just going to come right out and say it: Holi kicks Easter’s ass.

For more specific details about Holi and its rituals, head to this other COLOURlovers article by Colette Bennett. Also here are some more pics, pulled from an article on Holi at Boston.com: