Panfusine

Holi hai - 'Its Holi' runs the refrain this time of year when merriment and revelry break loose with he advent of spring. when travel brochures describe it as a 'riot of color' you could take it literally. THe festival is riotous, the normal 'distance' between the genders is blurred, sometimes for the worse. There was a rather powerful tweet out there yesterday suggesting that Holi would be a perfect occasion to teach kids accept 'NO' for an answer, something the average male Indian population seems all to often to require a refresher in. From the mythological point of view, Holi celebrates the rather fiery end of a demoness called Holika. Holika was the sister of the asura Hiranyakashipu, whose son was a devotee of Lord Vishnu. Hiranyakaship hated Vishnu with such a passion that he later found refuge at the feet of the Lord, simply because of his perverted reverse obsession. Similar to what the Abrahamic texts sometimes indicate about Lucifer, the f...

 Here are two tales from a long time ago, about how goodness prevails and striking parallels about how the antagonists meet their fate at the hands of divinity. The first one is from the book of Esther , the story of Haman the evil.  Haman was the  vizier in the ancient empire of Persia at the court of Xerxes I. He plots to poison the kings mind, hatches a diabolical plot to exterminate Mordechai (a confidant of the king and an uncle of Xerxes' queen Esther) and other Jews who lived in Persia and in his arrogance, even builds gallows from which to hang Mordechai. His plans are foiled by queen Esther and Haman finds himself at the end of the noose he created for Mordechai. This deliverance from the evil Hamam is commemorated by the Jewish holiday Purim . The second story, from the Puranas is that of Holika, the demoness. Holika was the sister of the Asura Hiranyakashipu. Their familial hatred of Vishnu was legendary and when Kamsa, the lord of  Mathura seeks he...