Colour, excitement at Kampala Holi Festival

By Solomon Muleyi

The Holi festival was just another of those reminders about how big the Indian community is in Uganda as thousands of Indians thronged the Arya Samaj grounds last Sunday to be a part of the Holi celebrations. 

The origin of the holi festival, like many other holidays celebrated around the world is shrouded in mystery as there are many theories attached to why the day is celebrated as a holiday in India. 

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A father smears his son with colour. Photo by Solomon Muleyi

But all the theories amount to a moral aspect where good will always triumph over evil, which, in a way, explains why it teems of notoriety and impishness in the way they have fun.

At 11:00pm, the revellers, most of them Indians and a few gate crushers like Denzel Mwinyeretsi (You know that chap? No? Stop stressing and get real already) had started trickling in.

The day’s main activity which was soaking any unsuspecting reveller in a horde of colours had started.

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Indian girls performing . Photo by Solomon Muleyi

A colour shower was set up in one of the corners and it became the main point of attraction.

The adults threw their maturity garbs off their bodies and drenched the nearest person in the colour liquids they trapped with disposable tins from the ooze of the colour shower.

Some ran around like Kindergarten children, chasing each other in bid to splash a mound of colour on their counterpart’s faces or clothes.

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Children playing with colour.  Photo by Solomon Muleyi

The children acted equally insane as they short colour liquids at revellers. Suspecting or not, these Indian children aimed and shot at the next person with colour smidgens from the toy guns they were using, excessively drenching whoever got victimized in colour.

Meanwhile, there were on going performances on the stage at the opposite side of the grounds as dance groups were formed among the Indian fraternities around to entertain the crowd which by the way, unlike Ugandans applauded everything that came onto stage.

Even the children that came onto stage to mimic one of the earlier performers were applauded.

The fun went on till 8:00pm at night when most of them were weary beyond walking so they announced the points of meet with their families and bundled up to drive home after a long day of colourful excitement.