Though festivals are perceived as unifying factors in the society, celebration of festivals like Holi on two different occasions in the country this year turned out to be quite unperceiving for many here.
Whereas the entire nation celebrated Holi on Wednesday, for people of Uttarakhand’s Kumaon division the main Holi was on Thursday.
Though the citizens had been celebrating the festival of colours for many days here, they had to conclude the Holi celebrations on Thursday following the astrologers’ observations.
Interestingly, the State Government had also to reschedule office holidays and all the public offices remained closed here on Thursday. However, this year too people across the Kumaon division celebrated the Holi celebrations with traditional fervour and gaiety.
Amid traditional Holi songs citizens could be seen exchanging Holi greetings and applying different colours on the faces of each others on Thursday. Children were not less excited on this occasion. They were seen spraying colours on each others since morning.
However, the Holi celebrations went off more or less peacefully in the Kumaon division. No untoward incident was reported from any parts of the region.
Keeping in view main Holy celebrations to be held in the Kumaon division on May 28, the Nainital district police had already alerted the police stations across the district to be vigilant during this period.
At the same time, all the inter-district points were also put on maximum vigil not to allow the anti-social elements to cause any unlawful incident during festive occasions.