So today is the night of dancing everyone in the village has been talking about. I thought cool okay, yeah lets dance and celebrate, i do that all the time. But as soon as I left my hotel in the morning it had already started. In the streets all i would see were these huge trucks loaded with people with flags bumping tunes driving down the street.

I was on the hunt for flea markets as i had some time for myself so i hopped in a cab with this dude that reminded me of a cab driver from TaleSpin or Rescue rangers or something.

Anyways we drove for like an hour not getting anywhere because streets were shut down for festivals and all these barges full of people and bass bins were filling up the traffic. So i got out of the cab because it was way faster to walk, I think the markets were closed or something, so i just walked around, i still haven’t bought a thing for my mom or anyone yet, so thats sorta lame. Anyways I spent the day coming up on parades of people worshiping speakers on trucks.

…click for a clip

I’d love to contrast these parades with the ones i’d go to growing up for Canada Day in my home town. So all day i didn’t find any markets that i was looking for but I spot 7 indians on a bike, can you beat that?

Later we all got together for the Holi Eve celebration. We walked to the Holi Maidan which ending up being quite a feat because the streets were rammed with people and dancing in their neighbourhoods and when they’d spot us they’d all grab us and kidnap us to the eye of there dancefloor and offer us drinks and food and would let us go . It was the craziest thing there was like a new sound system set up every 30-40 feet. So we finally made it to the Holi Maidan and it was rammed with people as well and there was a big tree in the middle. They brought us behind the stage and told us to go up the ladder, We had vip seats to like this Indiana Jones Ceremony. Every crew in the city got to have their band playing the Holi Song as they walked around the tree. The bands in Koliwada are badass, they consist of 6-7 drummers, trumpet player and one casio player who’s hooked up to a battery and megaphone thats strapped to a bicycle.

“Casio” playing is so popular that in the city there was even a sign that read “Singing, Dancing and Casio Lessons”.

So as the show went on there were fireworks which blew like 30 feet over our heads and then they lit the tree on fire. Women started walking around the fire with pots on their heads, adding another every lap then after like 10 or so pots they tossed them to the fire.

CLICK FOR HOLI CEREMONY CLIPS

After that we go to get in the line up with our village squad and go to walk in the line the the fire which was real sweet, i’m not sure how many people from outside of Koliwada have been able to do that. Too much typing next post is party time….