These colors are sold before the festival of colors "Holi". This festival marks the beginning of spring (mostly celebrated in March). People color each other with colored water and dry colors. The festival is marked by revelry, drum beating and crowds of people roaming a round the streets to color any unsuspecting individual. The festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm all over India.
Mike Liebhold writes:
My wife and I experienced the exhuberance of the Holi Festival, first hand, during a visit to Jaipur, Rajastan in 2001. For one brief day, The entire population covered each other with wild splattered colors. Foriegners ( us) were warned not to venture outside, to avoid hooligans roaming the streets looking for tourists, armed with balloons filled with permanant oil-based colors, rather than the washable powders shown here. We spent the day instead, on the balcony, drinking gin and tonics and watching the riotous fun below.
Sonal D'Silva writes:
These coloured powders are also used to make elaborate, decorative designs called 'rangoli'. Created by hand and more recently (for the not-so-steady-handed) using stencils. The coloured powders are used to make intricate designs, often outside the front door of a house during the festival of Diwali and even when there is a wedding in the house. You will invariably have a clumsy guest who steps right into the arrangement as he walks into the home, but hey, it's a festive time, so you can expect to hear a few grumbles but a new design is made everyday, so there's no real harm done in any case.
shilpa writes:
These colors are sold before the festival of colors "Holi". This festival marks the beginning of spring (mostly celebrated in March). People color each other with colored water and dry colors. The festival is marked by revelry, drum beating and crowds of people roaming a round the streets to color any unsuspecting individual. The festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm all over India.
Mike Liebhold writes:
My wife and I experienced the exhuberance of the Holi Festival, first hand, during a visit to Jaipur, Rajastan in 2001. For one brief day, The entire population covered each other with wild splattered colors. Foriegners ( us) were warned not to venture outside, to avoid hooligans roaming the streets looking for tourists, armed with balloons filled with permanant oil-based colors, rather than the washable powders shown here. We spent the day instead, on the balcony, drinking gin and tonics and watching the riotous fun below.
Sonal D'Silva writes:
These coloured powders are also used to make elaborate, decorative designs called 'rangoli'. Created by hand and more recently (for the not-so-steady-handed) using stencils. The coloured powders are used to make intricate designs, often outside the front door of a house during the festival of Diwali and even when there is a wedding in the house. You will invariably have a clumsy guest who steps right into the arrangement as he walks into the home, but hey, it's a festive time, so you can expect to hear a few grumbles but a new design is made everyday, so there's no real harm done in any case.