Holi Tomato!

There is a fabulous Indian festival called Holi. If you don't know it, just know that it involves chucking colored powder, water balloons and colored water...an exuberant festival of color. "Colour" I should say.

Chucking is an important aspect of the festival and people chuck not only color but also eggs, mud, toothpaste (do you feel the burn?) and there is a lot of smearing of gold and silver paint as well. Yes, smearing and chucking. The smearers are generally the younger, more aggressive Holi 'players' whose solitary focus is to ensure that you are unable to wash off whatever they have just smeared on you, so you basically look like a tomato for the next few days.

Speaking of tomatoes, a little town is Spain indulges in an activity akin to Holi called the 'La Tomatina' involving hurling of ...you guessed it-tomatoes! The festival was held just yesterday.
Truckloads of tomatoes are brought and 'poured' into the town center. The tomatoes are extra-ripe and pre-mushed like chunky salsa. What organic joy!
An hour later (yes this activity lasts only for an hour unlike Holi which spans several hours) everyone is pretty much walking around covered in ketchup and then trucks come around and hose them down with water.

La Tomatina is a huge Euro-tourist attraction with most participants coming in "ready to party." Yep, Holi has a big after-party scene too. Chucking, hurling and smearing is hard work that must be be followed by a state of inebriation!

Too bad Holi is in April and it's always so freezing here in New York...we never get to indulge in our very own NRI version. (Wink, wink.) Maybe we should adopt the tomatoed version of Holi...medium hot chunky garden salsa anyone? I'll bring chips!