Mumbai and Holy Holi

I am leaving Mumbai! In about two hours I leave to spend the weekend at the beach. My original plans to visit a temple on the India Pakistan boarder have been foiled by difficult and expensive travel requirements. So I have opted out for a relaxing time in the sun, I have already been to the beach once while here, but I think a little more relaxation will be nice from all the work I have been doing (I mean come on guys, its like, hard work watching people, and I have to, like, write on this every once in a while, ha!). Anyway so this week I have been going to clinic on the edge of a slum. The number of people has been less due to the fact that during this week there was a holiday called Holi. The day before Holi everyone starts celebrating, and because its India there is some confusion on when Holi actually is and so people start celebrating the day before as well. People run around colored green, red and all the colors in between, yelling and trying to color other people. As I was going to clinic a man in business clothes and trendy glasses saw me as a white person and jumped in front my bumper-to-bumper traffic bound rickshaw and demanded me to drink a glass of some colored liquid. Being close to the train station that I needed to go to, I got out of the rickshaw. The man gave the driver some of what I could only assume was juice, who drank it happily. Outside my rickshaw a huge stage with color liquid mixers standing around doing just that, with music blasting my ears out, stood before me. The persistent man was as you can imagine very adamant that I drink his juice thing along with the huge crowd, and you can bet your behind that I did just that, thinking, that if I was afraid of becoming sick I wouldn't be in India in the first place. After I finished the yellow drink the man and the crowed cheered, and throwing my cup in a huge growing pile of plastic gave me a red drink which I downed as the mixers on the stage exploded with glee. I think that this was for Holi due to all the colors, but on the same day there was some Muslim holiday so who knows what they where happy about. While walking around past traditional bone fires, non-traditional techno-blasting speakers, I was hit in the back. Well hit with a red watery paint from a spray gun. The paint that stained my shirt, ran down my pants staining me everything else. I whipped around seeing some fat middle aged man running behind a car giggling. I yelled "It was him!" pointing at the man. Of course absolutely no one cared, in fact a group of people just laughed at me for having a reaction. I walked off eyeing the man, and everyone else at this point. It was great, people where very excited. The next day we stayed inside, sleeping in and being lazy because nothing was open. When we did leave the apartment, gangs of colored people where walking around, but not that many and it was eerily quite. People are still stained from all the paint and you can see it on the side walks. It was quite cool to see. Now I am off to the beach, this time I am not sick (knock on wood) and have sunscreen.