Contest|1 Picture 1 Story Week #9

Greetings to all steemians from Sri Lanka. "Steem for Pakistan" is one of my favorite communities. Various beautiful contests are held there. "1 picture 1 story" is such a beautiful contest . It is organized by @suboohi. First of all, I thank her for organizing such a beautiful contest. Every moment in our lives has something special. We take Photographs of that moments as memories.So there is a hidden story related to those photographs. So today I am going to tell about a special photograph of my life.

_{My own image}

In this picture are three of my friends including me. The three of them are friends at my workplace. We are currently working for an Indian company. This photo was taken on 2023.03.08. It was the day when the Indian festival called "Holi" was celebrated. For the first time in my life, I got to celebrate Holi that day. That day we painted each other's faces with different colors. Actually we had not planned to celebrate Holi that day. We had a holiday that day. My Indian friends came to us with different kinds of colors to celebrate Holi. It was a very fun day.

Earlier I did not know the purpose of Holi. I had only seen it as a colorful festival where they play with colors. Holi is actually a Hindu festival. This is also known as colour festival. This is a two day event. On the first day, they gather around an open-air bonfire and perform a ritual to burn the devil call as "Holika". On the second day, they playfully throw colored powder at each other. There they do not forget to greet each other. They believe that by applying these colored powders to their bodies, they will be protected from diseases.

We had a lot of fun that day. Rather than religious beliefs, we had fun throwing colors at each other that day. They brought buckets of water and soaked us before applying the paint on our bodies. After that they beat us with colors. All of our faces were painted in different colors. Because of the wet bodies, the color was well absorbed by the body. It was very difficult when it was all over and went to take a bath. Because that color was on the body, I had to take a bath two or three times.

So that day they celebrated their Holi with us very happily. I celebrated Holi for the first time even though I had seen it on TV. Because this festival in Sri Lanka is not as famous as in India. Before the start of the Holi festival in India, these colors can be bought from many shops. A packet of about 100 grams can be bought for less than INR 30 to 50. In this picture are three of my Sri Lankan friends with me. This photo was taken by an Indian friend of mine. I am thankful to all my Indian friends for giving me such a beautiful memory. I shared my beautiful memory with you in this way. Thank you for reading the article.