Don't Mind, It's Just Harassment.

deconstructing the gendered reality of India's most invasive tradition.

Ever since I was a kid, I have dreaded Holi.

While the rest of the world saw a kaleidoscope of joy, I saw a season of siege. For a child with asthma, the ‘festive spirit’ was literally unbreathable.

But as the years passed, the physical suffocation evolved into something more sinister.

As I grew older, I realized that the lack of oxygen wasn’t just in my lungs; it was baked into the very language of the day, condensed into the four most dangerous words in the Indian festive vocabulary: ‘Bura na mano, Holi hai’.

A ‘light’ statement designed to bypass heavy consequences. It’s a linguistic hall-pass that treats consent like an option rather than a requirement.

To the one shouting it, it’s a mere joke.

To the women, kids, on the other side of the ‘perimeter’, its the sound of their boundaries being erased in real-time.

It is a bitter irony for a festival that began as a day where hierarchies were paused for community, and a predator’s defeat was celebrated in the flames. We have managed to invert the myth: today, Holi has turned into a reinforcement of the power of the aggressor—a sanctioned day for intrusion.

Holi in India is marketed as a '“beautiful” experience.

The drone shot show a vibrant nation; the reels highlight a fun, carefree and bold India. But on the ground, that vibrancy is a smoke screen—a series of calculated misdeeds dissolved into the gulaal.

Who gave us the permission to believe that a calendar date grants us ownership over another person’s body? Let alone a stranger’s. Who convinced us it was alright to force color onto the unwilling, to drench the passing, to grope women, to harass children under the guise of ‘play’ ?

The streets become a paradox: a riot of neon pinks and greens that camouflage the oldest crimes.

We are told to admire the color, but we are never told how to look away from the darkness mixed into the dust.

Holi was meant to be a festival of togetherness—a celebration of community.

Today, it is a homonym: one word describing two irreconcilable experiences.

It is a truth we rarely admit: this festival belongs to one gender while it is merely endured by the other.

For men, the day is an expansion—a license to occupy the streets, to be loud, to be reckless, to be ‘free.’ But for women, Holi is an exercise in contraction.

Men do not have to choose clothes that serve as armor against a stranger’s touch; they don’t have to maintain hyper-vigilance just because they dared to step out.

But as I write this, I realize: talking about the danger of the streets feels almost naive. When ‘Bura na mano’ can reach through a balcony, or a doorway, women aren’t even truly safe in their own homes. Expecting safety in a crowd is a far-fetched idea, isn’t it?

Safety is a heavy, taxing labor. For a woman, it is a full-time job performed in a world that is currently on vacation.

There is a specific, jagged irony in being hyper-vigilant while everyone around you is being ‘carefree.’

Almost every woman I know carries a memory of a hand reaching out from the multicolored crowd—unwanted, uninvited, and invasive. And in that moment, the ‘Bura na mano’ culture acts as a silencer.

You cannot scream, you cannot push back, and you cannot demand space without being branded a ‘spoilsport.’

You are forced to choose: your dignity or their ‘vibe.’

This is what the festival has become: a playground for predators with alcohol in their systems and ‘joy’ on their faces. They hide behind the neon powder, using the vibrancy of the day to mask the darkness of their intent.

It’s hard to call it a celebration when the colors in their hands feel less like a blessing and more like a brand.

My mother and I have spent countless hours dissecting the ‘why’ behind our dread. She always says the same thing: ‘Consent doesn’t go on vacation just because of a festival.’

That is not ‘OUR’ culture.

Harassing women in the name of fun is not my culture. Assaulting children because you are ‘playing’ is not my culture.

If your version of celebration requires the violation of another being, you aren’t really having fun—you are just exercising a hollow power.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with celebration.

Good people still exist—those who understand that joy is only real when it is shared, and that a festival is meant to be a sanctuary, not a snare.

But these are the people who wait for a ‘Yes,’ who respect the boundary, and who understand that the colors are a gift, not a weapon.

The tragedy is that their quiet decency is being drowned out by the loud, sanctioned entitlement of the crowd.

When we allow ‘Bura na mano’ to rule the day, we aren’t just hurting the victims—we are eroding the very essence of what a community celebration is supposed to be.

But if the price of ‘joy’ is the isolation of half the population, then the price is too high.

My dread is no longer just about the asthma of my childhood; it is about a culture that asks me to vanish so it can play.

I refuse to ‘not mind.’ I refuse to be a silent casualty of someone else’s fun.

Until our streets can guarantee the oxygen of consent, Holi will remain a festival of expansion for one gender, and a test of endurance for the other.

—P