Holi 2020: Here are some BIZARRE Holi traditions from across India

One of the most loved festivals, the festival of colours is here. Holi happens to be loved by all the fun-loving people for bright colours and water and all the pranks. This festival brings around a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. You get to see a variety of colours and all the crazy pranks and colourful madness during this festival. From our clothes to our food items, everything is picked out carefully for this fun-filled celebration but there are numerous fun traditions around this festival as well. Other than the Holika dahan, there are many other traditional ways to celebrate Holi in it's true spirit. In a diverse nation like ours, it's not surprising that there are so many different traditions with regards to one festival because of all the different cultural backgrounds of people. These different rituals are what makes this festival more fun. But some rituals are as weird as they come. Here are some strange Holi traditions and rituals from across the country.

1. Lath Maar

Some cities in Uttar Pradesh host the lath maar Holi wherein the women carry batons on this day and when men tease them, they case them with these batons and beat them and the men use shields to defend themselves. This amusing ritual is observed mainly in Barsana, Nandgaon and Vrindavan.

 

2. Huranga

In Baldeo, Mathura, men drench women with coloured water and then in return the women beat the men and strip their clothes and throw it around while the men try to save themselves, but when they are unable to escape, they end up getting stripped off their clothes.

3. Scorpion Holi

In the Saunthana village, Etawah, UP, there is a tradition wherein on the eve of Holi people hunt and catch scorpions. They beat drums which lures out the scorpions due to the thumping and then catch them and put them on different parts of their bodies and even after all this there hasn't been a single case of scorpion bite.

4. Elephant Holi

Rajasthan celebrates this fun Holi with Elephants. In the city of Jaipur, there is a beauty contest held for the Elephants and they are painted and there is a procession as well as a tug-of-war with elephants.

5. Hola Mohalla

The Sikhs in Punjab celebrate this festival in a warrior style. They hold an exhibition called Hola Mohalla in Anandpur Sahib where there are martial arts exhibitions, wrestling, mock sword-fights and other display of physical endurance. They wear blue robes with swords and spears and sing songs.

6. Manjal Kuli

In South India, the Kudumbi and Konkan communities celebrate this festival by drenching each other in turmeric water and turmeric powder and dance to percussion instruments and call this festival manjal kuli which means turmeric bath.

7. Holi Ashes

In Varanasi, there is a tradition of taking ashes from the cremation grounds and is mixed with the colours and play Holi with that. They do this because they believe that death is the path to salvation and we should not be scared of death or fear it for that matter.