White or black, Holi colours touch them all

Afrikaner, Zulu or Indian, Holi colours spared none at an annual celebration of the festival in South Africa.

Afrikaner, Zulu or Indian, Holi colours spared none at an annual celebration of the festival that is eagerly awaited by many South Africans here.

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Suresh Goel, the Indian Consul-General in Johannesburg, hosted a function at his residence here, something that has become a bit of tradition. Adults and children - among the several hundred guests - joined in the spirit of the occasion by daubing each other with bright coloured powder.

Nobody was spared, even those who tried to run as fast as they could from others who wanted to empty the bags of coloured powder that were handed out to all guests at the gate on arrival.

"It was my first time and I'm definitely going to be angry if I'm not invited back next year - it's such great fun," said Annettia Heckroodt, a white Afrikaner educationist whose prime task at the event seemed to be carrying an entire tray of coloured powder around and chiding those not "messed up enough yet".

For young Prudence Malindisa, of Zulu stock, it was great fun splashing her Indian friends, sisters Bhavisha and Jayna Naik, before they could "paint" her: "Oh, I like it so much! My mum wouldn't let me do this at home!"

But even they were carefully smeared with red, green and yellow dots on their foreheads by others around.

Shobana Rao and her troupe, who were in South Africa for a tour organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, regaled the guests with a variety of songs specially tailored for the occasion.

Indian-born Vinod Hassel, who runs Indian dance and music classes in the black community in the townships of Soweto and Thembisa here, was completely at ease as he spontaneously joined the musicians to perform swirling dances appropriate to Holi.