W h a t | W h y | H o w | W h i c h

Amaltas (Cassia fistula)	Marigold/ Gainda (Tagetus erecta)
Raktachanda (Pterocarpus santalinus)	Mehendi (Lawsonia inermis)

Holi. If a poll is taken among Indians, living in this coun-try, or in any part of the globe — on the ‘most popular’ Indian festival, Holi is likely to beat all other contenders hollow. Why? Because it spells bindaas fun — that cuts across borders, cultures and societies.

But most of all because its key theme is colour.

Holi signals the arrival of the Vasanta ritu or spring. The season of colours. It takes place on the day of Phalguna Purnima, which according to the purnimanta lunar calendar — followed by Hindus several centuries before Christ — is the last day of the year.

Did you know that there are at least six different folklores about the origin of Holi? The most popu-lar among them all is the legend of Narsimha avatar. On this day — the story goes — Lord Vishnu, took the form of Narsimha — a creature that was half man and half lion — and killed demon Hiranyakashipu, to save little Prahlad, his most ardent disciple. So Holi marked the victory of good over evil.

Indians have played Holi for many centuries. Ancient scriptures like Rigveda and Gaduda Purana mention this ritual of people sprin-kling colours on each other. They played with gulal--powders made out of spring blossoms, leaves and fruit extracts. The red was Raktachandan (Pterocarpus santali-nus); the green was blended Mehendi and the yellow was dried Amaltas (Cassia fistula) and Marigold / Gainda (Tagetus erecta).

A dangerous game?

We still play with gulal. But now the colours come from chemi- cals. The red is mercury sulphite; the green, copper sulphate; and the black paste has lead oxide. That is not all. Several dry colours use asbestos talc, chalk powder or silica as their base.

Now you know why your skin breaks out in angry rashes after Holi, and why your vision blurs if your friend throws coloured water on your face.

Where have all the natural colours gone? But, hey, Holi comes only once a year. And surely protecting our-selves from the onslaught of syn-thetic colours for one day is not that serious a challenge! Well a lot more is actually at stake here. And I am not just talk-ing about the lasting effect that these chemical poisons have on the soil and the water around you. You probably know that already. But are you aware that Holi, today, reflects the breakdown of the cen-turies-old Indian tradition of pro-ducing natural colours? And this was not merely about making gulal out of dried plants. It was about making natural dyes for textiles. A profession that provided roti, kapda and makaan for a huge sec-tion of the Indian people.

Since when have Indians been making colour? It is difficult to set an accurate date. A scrap of red-dyed cloth dug up at the Harappan site, proves that the craft was in vogue even then.

In fact, history tells us that ancient India was known across the world for its brilliant and per-manent dyes on cotton — the most difficult of all fabrics to dye.

In ancient Egypt coloured cottons were a rage among the royalty. As early as 200 BC, Roman ships travelled to southwest India to pick up huge consignments, because it was fashionable to wear Indian cotton togas!

Then, communities in various parts of India earned their living by making dyes. But each region had its own special colour identity.  Bengal and Kerala made sparkling, pure white. Orange, red and green were the favourites in the arid deserts of Rajasthan and Gujarat, and in Deccan plateau the colour scheme was maroon and bottle green.

The use of colour was defined by the local flora, soil, and rivers, and the people who lived there. Why? Because the dyes were made of these:

Plants — Leaves, roots, bark, flowers and seeds, these were the main ingredients of dyes;

Mineral deposits — the colour and texture of the soil were a vital factor. Pre-historic humans trav-elled far and wide to ensure a steady supply of red pigment, which came from iron oxide deposits in the earth.

A rainbow of plants Vegetable dyes. The most out-standing feature of the traditional textile business. The weaver-dyers mastered the art of making colours out of herbs and plants.  They explored local forests for raw materials. Jackfruit wood was used for a bright yellow. Kala sirisbark yielded brown and pea flowers produced green and blue. Chayaver ugave Kalam-kari textiles that pink-ish red. Harda was used for varying shades of yellow. It is believed that the term "blue col-lar" worker is derived from indigo workers, who wore the cheap blue cloth. Haldi / turmeric was the brightest of all nat-urally occurring yellow dyes. Curcumin, a nat-ural pigment, was extracted by soaking haldi root in acidic solution. Orange came from the flowers of gulmohur and safed kikar leaves yielded black. Safflower yellow was also a very popular colour. Safflower con-tains a water-soluble yellow dye and an orange-red dye, which is soluble in an alka-line solution. Artisans colleced fresh flowers before they faded on the plant and the corollas were removed. The yellow dye was extracted by washing the corollas for three to four days in acidified water, which dissolved the colour pigment. But the dyes that were most in demand were indigo and mad-der. How were these colours extracted? Indigo Blue The indigo plant was soaked in a vat or a barrel, which was buried underground to protect it from sun-light. The product was a pale yellow solution.  This was paddled continuously for two to three days till a blue substance emerged on the top. This was then strained out and blue cakes were made out of it. Madder Red: Red dye was obtained from the madder plant. Its roots were washed and dried and ground into powder. This was then mixed with gum or water to obtain a deep red hue. In the 19th cen-tury, Turkey red, a brilliant crimson shade, was extremely popular. In fact, all madder-dyed fabrics did brisk business.

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