They say playing in the arena and watching the game from the stands are like night and day; both might not narrate the same part of the story and one might just take back home a hundred versions or a thousand perspectives to chew over.
I remember one of my close friends quoting her experience of a random party that she was compelled to attend. Being advised by a dentist, who was more concerned of his fee than her molars, to not touch anything which could harm the expensive root canal treatment, she kept her hands off the hard drinks and surprisingly, ended up enjoying more than the times when she was happily drunk, anyway unable to notice things happening around.
According to her, she lived every moment of the elation and also laughed off several bloopers which drunkards around were unwittingly landing themselves in, unaware of the fact that some exceptional, conscious mortals might have their eyeballs fixed on them. She also imagined herself doing the same, enjoying the tastes of varied IMFLs, and catching all the limelight having made a monkey of self. Anyway, she said it was total fun watching hardy guys puke, oh-so-sensitive girls fall on the dance floor, happy-go-lucky types cry while pouring their emotions out and elderlies dance like no one’s watching.
According to her, being amongst the party animals and eying on them while sipping fruit juices were two distinct experiences all together. While former would leave you least concerned about the world around, the latter would give you hundreds of hush-hush stories to gossip about and thousands of instances to watch and fracture your rib cage while laughing.
I experienced a similar case of watching a game from the stands during this holi. Since we were not supposed to play along this year, we basked in watching others make merry while soaking themselves in colors, water, filth and, of course, bhang. Here are my tablets of observations, coated with loads of sarcasm:
- I saw oh-aah-ouch girls merrily throw water-filled balloons on random guys and hiding away when the guys gave them what these girls eagerly sought after, their attention!
- I noticed several haw-Namaste-nahi-bola aunties rub gulaal off each other’s faces while complaining about their hard-to-tame kids.
- I also managed to catch a glimpse of henpecked uncles have a day off their wives and get mirthfully drunk in the daytime.
- I viewed the world around me so jubilantly drenched, from their crowns to cuticles, in colors unknown, only to wash them off during the later half of the day.
- I observed one of the self-proclaimed dudes of our society, under the influence of his favorite ‘unknown’ liquor, listen to the same song blare in his car in the repetitive mode for the entire day.
- I relished watching numerous kids run in unison to color and wet every new member, only to add the person targeted to the group and further look for a new target.
- I viewed several ageds enjoying the euphoria which so gave them a break from their usual dull lonely routine.
- I loved the smell of gulaal around, which filled the air with loads of toxicity and agents to cause allergy.
In short, I saw this holi from the stands and realized how I missed getting mad along with the crowd, being totally mucky this one day of the year, only to wash the stains off the rest of the 364 days. J
