Bhubaneswar: People across all walks of life irrespective of cast, color, creed and religion celebrated the festival of colours with great fervor and festive spirit.
Residents of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar and all the districts celebrated the festival with great fun with their near and dear ones.
From early in the morning people were seen preparing for putting up pandals for Holi celebration. Later people thronged and smeared colour on one another and danced to the tunes of several Holi numbers from Hindi films.
Children were also not left behind in celebrating the festival. They were seen coming out on to streets and opened water guns on one another. Be it be children or the elders, all were so smeared with colours that their faces went beyond recognition.
At some places, people were seen greeting one another a ‘happy holi’ and exchanging sweets.
“Holy is festival of colour. At the same time it is synonymous with fostering ‘brotherhood,” a reveler at the capital city said while another observed, “The festival comes once in a year. So everybody should come out onto the street to celebrate the festival.”
A group of elderly people who were celebrating Holi in the pilgrim city observed, “During holi celebration, synthetic colour should be avoided. We are playing with herbal holi, and asked our children to opt for herbal colours only.” Here and at Konark, some foreign tourists were also seen enjoying the festival. They observed the festival as unique and the experience they had was also equally amazing.
Similarly, some parents of the silver city of Cuttack advised their children to take great care while taking bath after holy celebration.
Some Odia film stars and serial artistes were also seen celebrating the festival at some designated places in Bhubaneswar. Similarly near Jayadev Bhawan, journalists and photo journalists enjoyed the festival a lot with smearing ‘Gulal’ on each other.
Here are some pictures that captured the mood of the country Friday:
Congress workers have a gala time at the party office on the auspicious occasion of Holi in Bhubaneswar
Students enjoying Holi in Cuttack:-
PNN
