होली with Adrian

Adrian is a friend of mine from Purdue.  We were postdocs together there years ago, and shared an office.  Adrian and I are in quite different ends of pure mathematics: his area being dynamics, the study of function composition, and mine is more number theory/representation theory.  Nonetheless, we've found some fun projects which mix up the two ends, and even have a couple of papers!
Having ongoing projects means that math departments will often fund our visits, and so Adrian was able to visit me for two weeks.

As I waited for him at the airport, I enjoyed watching westerners arrive into India, bracing themselves for the culture shock, wide-eyed and very present.  TIFR had sent a car for him, and I tagged along for the ride home.

The next morning was Holi, the "festival of colors".  We had a vague idea that folks celebrated Holi by tossing brightly colored powder at each other.   Adrian's wife had teased him that he was too craven to venture out and see much of India.  He therefore insisted that we leave the protected naval area, and walk straight into the nearby slum carrying two packages of Holi powder.  The nearby slum being the biggest slum in Asia.

We walked down the long roads of the naval area.  We could see groups of people who had obviously been playing with the powder.  Several people cheered, "Happy Holi!" at us as they went by.  But noone threw any at us, at first.

The Horror!  The Horror!

We reached the outskirts of the poorer neighborhood, and found a wild group of young men roughhousing in a play area.  We stopped, and several of them beckoned for us to come over.  Adrian and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and let them grab us.  They surrounded us and rubbed their purpled hands all over our faces and hair.  One little guy tried to get my Holi package, but I didn't let him.  I later came to realize that you're supposed to let folks color you with your own bag of powder.  I think.  Anyway we did retaliate as well as we could and with our neon green version. "Happy Holi!" we all shouted.

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become one.

After that we walked downtown to the tourist area, hoping for more of the same.  We saw plenty of non-Hindus, including women, walking around in white clothing completely unscathed.  So I think that if you don't want to participate in Holi, they leave you alone.  Since we were splattered with purple, more people engaged with us.  I was in "snowball fighting" mode and a little mischievous, and surprised various pedestrians with powder.  I'm not sure if that was okay, but I got away with it.  One kid whom I had ambushed immediately went to a powder-wallah and purchased a bit of powder to reciprocate.

Later we returned to the TIFR housing complex.  Here men and women approached us slowly, took out a bit of powder from our bags and applied it softly like makeup to our faces, again wishing us Happy Holi.  Others were wrestling in the mud.   There was a little program with women invited to dance in a circle.  It was fun!

Otherwise during his visit, Adrian and I mostly did math and hung out.  DAI regulars will be unsurprised to know that I made a third trip to Elephanta, because like most Americans, he wanted to see the monkeys.  Well I delivered.

The simple life.

Devil Horns at the holy site.

Alright, that's my Holi post.  Next, I want to show you some videos of Chennai.