Life is like a rollercoaster,
it has its ups and downs,
but it's your choice whether to scream or enjoy the ride...
When life's rollercoaster throws you off track, do you scream, or do you hold on tight?
For Ira and Rudraksh, the journey is far from...
Holi, the festival of colours, has been celebrated since ancient times across Aaryavarta, Jambudweep, Bharatvarsh, Hindustan, or simply Bharat or India, as the world knows her today.
With Holi arrives spring: carrying the fragrance of change, the promise of warmth, and the laughter of new bonds.
It is a day to cleanse oneself of past mistakes, to let grudges fade in the brightness of new beginnings. A day when hearts learn to forgive, friends reunite, and strangers smile like kin. People settle debts of money, of words, of emotions and start anew.
During the Mughal era, the festival found new names - Eid-e-Gulaabi, the Festival of Roses; and Aab-e-Pashi, the Shower of Colours. Yet under the rule of the sixth emperor, Aurangzeb, a royal Farman silenced its public celebrations. Only after his death did the colours return to the streets. The following emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar I, himself penned verses in its honour; and poets like Amir Khusrau, Ibrahim Raskhan, Nazeer Akbarabadi, and Mehjoor Lakhnavi sang of its joy in their poetry.
But the question remains: Where did it all begin? What was its origin?
According to the Bhagavata Purana, long, long ago - during the age of Satya Yuga - there lived a mighty demon king named Hiranyakashipu. He had a younger brother, Hiranyaksha; a sister, Holika; a wife, Kayadhu; and a son, Prahlada.
All three siblings harboured deep hatred for Lord Vishnu, the Preserver of the Universe, spreading unrest wherever they went.
Tired of their cruelty, Lord Vishnu, in his Varaha avatar - the body of a man and the head of a boar - slew Hiranyaksha.
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Consumed by rage and grief, Hiranyakashipu vowed vengeance against the Lord. Through fierce austerities, he gained immense power, and with a boon from Lord Brahma - the Creator - he grew arrogant and tyrannical. Declaring himself God, he demanded that all his subjects worship him alone.
But his son, little Prahlada, remained a steadfast devotee of Lord Vishnu, refusing to bow before his father.
Enraged by his son's faith, Hiranyakashipu devised countless ways to kill him, from boiling oil to the edge of a cliff, yet Prahlada emerged unscathed each time.
At last, in an act of desperate cruelty, his sister Holika - blessed with a magical shawl that made her immune to fire - agreed to sit on a burning pyre with Prahlada in her lap.
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