by Swarna K

Created on: August 12, 2009   Last Updated: August 14, 2009

When they say India is a land of cultures, that's very true. India is undoubtedly the land of various cultures. More importantly India is a land of festivals, where every second day there is a festival and each and every festival is celebrated grandly. One such festival is the festival of Holi. Well, behind each festival there is a story linked to Hindu mythology. The same is the case with the Holi festival.

Well there are many stories linked with Holi as well. The most important one which all the Hindus believe is the story of Prahlad. They say there was a demon, Hiranyakashyap, who was blessed by god for his long life and he asked lord Brahma that neither a human nor an animal, neither inside nor outside and not even by any weapon should he die. And after being blessed he took an advantage of that and he thought himself more powerful than God and asked all the people in his kingdom to worship him as their Gods or else he would kill them. Out of his fear, they complied with his orders.

Then he was blessed with a son and he named him Prahlad. But to his surprise, right from the time he was born, he worshiped lord Vishnu. When he was asked to worship his father, he refused to do so. Hiranyakashyap had a sister called Pootna, who was an evil demon. She was asked by his brother to kill his son. So she took the son on her lap and sat on a fire. To everyone's surprise, she was burnt to ashes and Prahlad came out safely.

Then later Hiranyakashyap was killed by Lord Vishnu who came, in the form of Narasimha (meaning half man and half lion), from a pillar and took him on his lap and killed him. Since then, people celebrated Holi to show gratitude to Lord Vishnu and out of happiness for getting rid of the demon.

There are many other stories attached to this festival, as you go in different parts of India, you come to know different stories attached to Holi.

The day before Holi, people burn fires and burn the model of Pootna, and then on the day of Holi people play with colors, they apply color on each other, they make sweet dishes and many other items and share with each other. Holi is a festival full of colors. People and especially children are excited about this festival and they start making preparations and start buying colors and other things long before the festival itself.

Most importantly, Holi is a festival which shows a feeling of brotherhood, as people apply colors even to their enemies; they forget their enmity and apply colors to each other. And this is the reason why people in India are still so united, because they celebrate each and every festival together.

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