Holiday Today And It Is The Festival Of Holi Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

Colourful celebration
Of spring arrival
Another religious significance
Associated with Holika,
Who has the special power of
Not being hurt by fire and who is also a
Sister of a demon
Known as Hiranyakasipu
Who arrogated himself to a god form
And tortured to death those
Who worshipped other gods
Ironically his son Prahalad
Turned out to be devotee of
Lord Vishnu
And braved his very own father's tortures
Prahalad was once to be burnt alive
Holika holding him
As Holika cannot be touched by fire
And the fire was lit
Prahalad prayed Vishnu for rescue
And it worked
The fire engulfed Holika and killed her
Leaving Prahalad unhurt
Festival Holi marks this end of Holika
End of arrogance and
Rise of divinity
The festival gets celebrated
By throwing of colours mutually on others
Marking closeness, friendship and togetherness
What was originally a vegetation-based colour festival
Changed with time and now it is more chemical colours
Theme, of course, remains the same
But leaving behind
Some skin reactions and respiratory symptoms
Among festival partakers
Leading to new medical challenges
Holi, be it be colourful
Let it not turn harmful
Dreams are colourless
Holi marks indirectly colourful dreams
Let this Holi make people dream
For noble and progressive growth and advance
As if human love and kindness matter