Holi high!

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‘Be it strangers or friends, everybody was throwing colours’
Anushka Menon, fashion photographerIn 2003,
I had just returned from New York. That year I was shocked and disgusted to see people playing Holi in the capital. So I decided to keep a low profile.

But last year at Holi Cow! Festival, I went berserk. I was drenched from head to toe. And be it friends or strangers, everyone was throwing colours at each other. We had a huge tub full of watercolour and before, I could understand, my friends picked me and I was thrown into it. We played for hours. It took me days to get the colours off me.

‘WE PLAYED HOLI WITH A RANDOM GUY AND HAD A BALL’
Vir Das, actor
It was two years ago and my friends and me were playing Holi on the road, throwing balloons at random cars, that passed. This one car came, where a guy was leaning out of the car window to throw balloons back at us. He leaned, lost balance and fell right in my friend’s lap. That car never came back to pick that guy. He was with us the whole day, playing, having fun and eating. We didn’t even asked that guy’s name. That has to be the craziest Holi ever!

‘My hair was streaked in rainbow colours’
Mehar Bhasin, ex-model and etiquette expert
If I had to think of one crazy Holi, it would be the one I played in 2011 at a private party. I met all my old friends and we ended up playing like mad that my blonde streaks, were transformed into red, pink, yellow and green. And all this without bhang!

‘After having bhang, we danced non-stop even in the rains’
Vikram Baidyanath, entrepreneur and socialite
I am a very sober person who doesn’t go crazy a lot but there was this one time at a private party, where we were all ‘bhang-ed out’. I kept thinking of Lord Shiva as I enjoyed being high on bhang. I rarely do that but the thought of Shiva having bhang was the only reason I had it. We were dancing on the dance floor when all of a sudden showers came on and we still didn’t stop dancing.

‘I was served bhang in gujiya without my knowledge’
Karan Oberoi, actor and singer
It was a couple of years back when my friend, very smartly, fed bhang in a gujiya. As I liked it, I ate loads of it and after that kept laughing. I was laughing while eating, dressing up and sleeping.
My sister told me that I was just not stopping. It was crazy for a teetotaler like me.

‘I DRANK BHANG, hogged AND LAUGHed LIKE crazy’
Amanpreet Wahi, socialite
Holi is all about naach-gana and unlimited masti, when you let your hair down to enjoy the festival of colours. My craziest Holi party has to be a private party, where all my close friends were present. A spirited Delhiwala’s Holi bash is incomplete without consuming bhang. This was the first time when I tried bhang. Initially I kept drinking without realising that it contained intoxicants. But soon it started to hit me and I hogged like mad! I ate everything that was on the menu at least five times and kept laughing like a jackal. My boyfriend (now my husband) got scared looking at the redness in my eyes and trembling hands. The hangover was terrible. I slept for two days straight to get over it.

‘I was thrown in a water tub’
Ala Madhu, socialite
My craziest Holi has to be my first Holi in India 12 years ago. Being from Ukraine, I never knew about the concept of this festival. Though my husband (Rajan Madhu) had briefed in advance, I wasn’t sure of what was to come. As soon as I went down to my lawn, I didn’t even realise and I found myself in a water tub. After that, it was just fun, food and colours.