HOLI KE RANG AUR BHANG NE MUJHE CHAR CHAND DIKHAYE THE AUR AISA LAGA KI MEIN CHAND KE PAAR PAHUCH JAUNGA... BY ALI PETER JOHN

I don't know why I have to say it again and again that I was born and brought up in a slum, It is perhaps because of my many experiences in these slums which have left scars on my body, my mind and my soul that I try to keep scratching the surface of these scars find the truth about me and my past - Ali Peter John

One of the best things i love to remember about my life in the slum I lived i was the way in which we all celebrated all the different festivals without worrying or being scared about which caste or creed we belong to

It was difficult to which festival we celebrated in a more festive way, Christmas, Eid, Diwali or Holi, for us all the festivals were just same and occasions to have a good and even a great time if our parent's resources allowed

But the most colourful festival according to me was Holi when we all got together the previous night and burnt dried up tree, plants, old clothes and whatever come our way and what i could never understand was abuses my neighbours hurled at each other and especially at women, I couldn't understand what happiness they gained from giving vent to their pent up feelings.

It was during one of the Holi festivals that I had my first taste of Bhaang which some bhaiyas from UP thrust on my throat and how I choked and how i caughed and how i went to sleep till the next evening and people thought i was dead, I was only 12 years old at that time and had vowed never to play Holi again..

But I had a strange relationship with Holi which came back into my life, again and again even though I was horrified about it...

The next time I was at a Holi celebration, it was at the RK Holi celebrated in a way that there was not going to be another day in life, a celebration which was given an entirely new meaning by the showman Raj Kapoor.

I had gone to the studio to cover the festival as my job in screen, but I never knew that the celebration could lead to a kind of end for me because the moment Rishi Kapoor and his young friends threw me into the special Holi pond, I tumbled in the pond several times and cried out for help but only to receive wild calls which teased me for my cowardice

But Rishi and his friends had a cure for me to drive away all my fear, they took me to a huge bar and got me sozzled over bottles of beer and by the time I had consumed my fifth bottle of strong beer, I was strong enough to face any hell and even the wroath of the great showman Raj Kapoor.

However beer was only the beginning because there were other kinds of liquor to be downed and by the time sun was ready to go down, I was also down and Rishi had to dump me in a car and make arrangements to see that was reached home safely and it was only when Rishi called me the next morning that I knew that I was alive

It was another Holi festival and another time and this time the venue was the large grounds of Amitabh Bachchan's Pratiksha, it was supposed to be a grand feat to be seen at the Holi festivities of the Bachchan family and I considered it a privilege to be invited by both Amitabh and Jaya

I started drinking from the word go and I really went till I knew I was getting drunk during noon and no one cared to stop me from my madness, till I saw in my drunkenness how Jaya called one of her assistants and asked him to see that I didn't drink so much and even asked him to leave me home, but a drunk is a drunk is a drunk, i took that as an insult and went to a nearby bar and had some more drinks and went to office at nariman point and wrote my piece on the Holi at Pratiksha and I laughed out a lot when my editor told me that what i had written was one of the best pieces i had written, WAH REH HOLI KI SHARAB, KYA KYA KAMAL KARVATI HAI TU

I was now hell-scared these Holi festival and had vowed not to go to any other Holi festival again, but one invitation from Subash Ghai to celebrate Holi at his Madh Island cottage, "Mukta" and I was willing to walk all the way and what does a man do at a Holi celebration, especially when it is a celebration organized by showman Subhash Ghai ?

I had last had a few glasses of bhang when i was in school and had been knocked out and it was going to be a new experience with bhang at Subhash Ghai's Holi and besides the bhang was being prepared all the time by a man who was called and looked like what Ravan would actually have looked like, I stood near this Ravan and he took great pleasure in downing me or drowning me in glasses and glasses of bhang and i forgot all about myself and all my happy and sad moments and realised that I had reached home only on the afternoon of the next day.

I have not had any taste of any kind of alcohol and have not been to any kind of Holi celebration, because I know all that it will take me to drown in the depth of a grand Holi or just a little colour on my face and two large glasses of bhang. JINDAGI KA RANG OR DHANG AGAR BADALNA HO TO BUS EK BAAR HOLI MANAO AUR BAHUT JAM KAR BHAANG LAGAO.