Happy Holi!

Most days in Rishikesh, after the Ashram, were spent either in philosophy lectures, teaching myself how to read tarot and getting a little bit obsessed with it, taking yoga classes or going on Jewish "dates" to the Chabad house with my new friend Oved. Oh and by Jewish dates I mean thinking I was on a date and really just sitting by myself while everyone around me spoke hebrew. Heaps of fun!

My cousin Dani had emailed me saying that she was bored in Delhi and where was I. I emailed her begging her to come join and before I could even check my email again to see what she had decided to do, she had tracked me down like a honing beacon and come directly to rishikesh to the random small cafe that I was sitting at behind someone's house in a dark desolate alley. Amazing. That was the second time that without any information other than what city I was in that this girl was able to use intuition alone to find me on her first try out. It felt like a magic trick. Later on that week she also told me that I would have twin boys either by December of this year or December of 2o12. I did the math and sent Oved home alone that night.

We had decided to stay in Rishikesh till after the great Hindi holiday called Holi. Holi is a holiday meant to bring darkness into light. It is celebrated by a giant game of color tag in the streets. By color tag I mean that everyone has either buckets of colored water, or powdered paint or paint guns that they peg with you as you run wild trying to peg others. Among the Hindus its supposed to be good fun, and as we watched it did seem to be quite a gentle and loving sharing of paint. For westerners the rules a re a bit different. There is a lot of alcohol involved and gangs of young men whose intentions have nothing to day with darkness, light or color period. They play the game called "grab as many boobies as you can." definitely a different game.

Rob, Julie and Dani and I spent the morning watching the festivities which seemed like just good old fashioned fun. And you know me, I'm a sucker for a game of tag. Probably why I've had any success working with children. So, Rob and I decided to brave it and join the frey. Julie and Dani decided to stay on the roof of our guesthouse with most other sane tourists. We also decided that if we were going to roam the streets during Holie, we would do it in top form. I put proper running shoes on and tied everything important to me, Rob got a rambo headband and we were off to run with the wolves, the big boys, the huge gangs of Indians. And it was awesome. We were covered in color in no time, which although looked amazing I must admit did not taste so great. We were running around like it was mission impossible, hiding in alleys, ducking behind jeeps, running up on people from behind and covering them with pinks and greens. It was all fun and games till I ended up getting tackled by a gang of young boys who were out for their boobie grabs. Even that though wasn't so bad. There is so much weird aggression and tension towards women in this heavily repressed country and normally there is no way for me to rage against it. But here in this pile of attackers I was able to punch and kick and fight back and it felt awesome! I made it out of their grasp and continued to run down the street, laughing the whole way.

After a couple of hours though I was done and basically spent the rest of the day trying to wash the paint off, which guess what doesn't come off that easily and sleeping, trying to fight off a stomach virus that Dani had brought with her from Delhi. Right: a picture of me, even after a couple showers, loving a pink puppy that had been hit by Holi as well.