Indian Festivals

[Guest]

Was again watching Sri Oza's Bhagavatam. He mentioned a fun festival in Barsana (Vrindavan). My family is originally from Vrindavan but I am ashamed to say I had not heard about this before.. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Anyways the legend is that once Krishna went looking for Radha and Radha got shy and hid herself in a lotus. The govals from nand gaon were looking all around for Radha when gopis from Barsana took the matter in their own hands and beat the cr@p out of govaliyas with laths. Lath is a thick and long bamboo stick. To this day on phagun sud 9 this festival is celibrated by folks over there and is a big attraction. Its called laththamaar (dhulai with bamboo sticks <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) holi. Wily vaishanavas descend on Vrindavan a couple of months in advance and feed tonnes of ghee to barsana gopis <!--emo&:felx--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/flex.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='flex.gif' /><!--endemo--> so they can really have a go at it with poor govaals taking the abuse with only shields to protect.. <!--emo&:tv--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tv_feliz.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tv_feliz.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->