The alarm went off with clockwork efficiency. And her dreams switched immediately to black and white. A stage that was a precursor to her eventual waking up a few minutes later.

This was a recent phenomenon. It had started just after that fateful day a couple of Holis back. But she didn’t want to dwell on that. And her highly tuned defense mechanism kicked in and blocked all the thoughts that were threatening to come tumbling down with her impending tears.

She ran her fingers through her hair, lapsed into a languorous yawn and then stretching like a cat, even purring like one, she woke up to the rituals of the day. Already she could hear the noises of the street, a little more childish today than usual.

Because Holi is a young festival.

And it is normally the children who scamper out onto the streets with their arsenal of colored powders, water pistols and the assortment of balloons that they use to make water bombs.

It is only a little later when the slightly more grownups enter the field. And they are the ones that change the rules. While the kids are content with harmless splashing of color on people, cars, bikes, walls and so on, and are more than satisfied with the goodies that Grandmas serve, the adults and in fact even the older teenagers look for something with more of a bite.

Is it because with age their natural adrenalin generation has now been reduced to a ‘will kick in only when stimulated’ kind of mode?

Just think of it, the kids cascade onto the streets floating on a natural high. But the more mature folk need to be coaxed into leaving their inhibitions behind. There is a lot of hesitation and half hearted objection and only then do the colors begin to flow.

Of course, once they start there is no looking back and the whole thing becomes a bit contagious. Till the body says, hey take a break…we are not as young and fit any more. Then the stimulants make their appearance. Later, not many people remember who exactly it was who asked for the first drink, who articulated the wish to partake in Bhang and so on, but soon the music begins and the raucous tone tints the colors of the moment.

The dancing that starts off musically soon loses its rhythm and filters down into sporadic body movements that seem to blend slow motion with sudden bursts of uncoordinated speed. So when the next friend comes into the house, his hug is warmer, his hands discover a new found freedom and caresses become less friendly and more passionate.

Her thoughts were interrupted again by the trained block that had helped her retain her sanity these last two years. And she came out of her trance. Or so she thought.

She looked out of the window and spotted a bunch of young men screaming and shouting, running after a pretty young thing and her memories fought back, demanding that they not be denied.

And suddenly the young girl was her and the boys were her friends. Friends from work, friends from college, friends from the Gym and friends of friends. Friends who on that day, powered by a lethal mix of Beer and Bhang just decided that she had to be shaken and stirred out of her ivory castle.

It started with hands that errantly grazed her more sensitive and private parts. With just the right amount of restraint to be passed off as accidental. Then they became bolder and the grazes grew into gropes. She remembered some of the guys stepping back and commenting that they seemed to have crossed an unspoken of limit. And some of them actually walked off from the scene.

The few who stayed back laughed it off, laughed off her discomfort, laughed off the feeling that there were boundaries of propriety that they seemed to have neglected. And more beer and bhang appeared. And she was made to drink some as well.

Like the white shirt she was wearing at the beginning of the day that had now changed color to an explosion of yellow, green, red and blue, the laughter too changed shades and slipped unconsciously into a kind of evil pastel. And as that laughter sneered into a smirk and then sizzled into a poignant silence, she knew that the point of no return was long gone.

They raped her then. All known people, all faces that had masked friendship for some time. And hidden their dark desires. Which now torrented into an inebriated orgy where she was helpless against brute strength and collapsed like a flower plucked out of existence.

She left that place then. Leaving behind her hospital sojourn as a bad dream. Tried to forget the friends who had magically disappeared after that Holi. Tried to forget the wives of those friends, and their girl friends who sprang to the defense of their menfolk insinuating that it was perhaps she who had led them on into the transgression. Perhaps she was the provocateur!

She left that place. And naturally decided that Holi was not to be celebrated as a festival, but mourned instead as a day of lost innocence. And that’s when her usually colorful dreams began to fade into black and white images just a few seconds before she woke up.

Her eyes rubbed the blur of tears out as she rubbed her fist on them and she looked out of the window again. The girl had stopped running. The men were circling her into submission. The laughter had become more devilish. And the bodies were leaning towards an age old slang of lust.

She stood there by the window. Frozen into helpless inactivity. Her insides screaming for help but her mind refusing to instruct the body to react. She did not even have the strength to step back from the window and at least let the crime be committed in private. But she started crying.

It started as a small sob escaping her lips, her lungs. Then it became a violent shrugging of despair. Till finally it peaked into a scream that painted slashes of vibrance into the pitiable white of the afternoon canvas that was unfolded in front of her.

That’s when he came into the picture. It actually looked like he had floated into the scene on a cloud, but she immediately realized that the exhaust fumes of his motorcycle were creating the optical illusion. He got off his bike and walked towards the group. Of predators and the prey. And smiled his way into diffusing the situation.

The girl ran back towards the house with a sigh of relief. The men tucked their arousals between their legs and dispersed in several directions. The hero lit up a cigarette and went about fuming up a cloud of relief.

She got a good look at him then. For the first time that afternoon. And she felt a question shaping up in her mind. Where were you when I needed you…her mind questioned. Even as her heart said…does it really matter?

But she smiled and looked up into the skies, as if expecting a divine presence there, and then slowly drew the curtains, shutting out the tumultuous afternoon, shutting out the near disaster and shutting out all doubts. Doubts that hope would return. Take a halting step back into her life. Doubts that often kept her awake through the night, and let her sleep in the unforgiving rise’n shine of daylight.

But as she turned and saw her bed she knew it was time to sleep. Time to dream again. Because this time she knew her dreams would never pale into monochrome. And she would never again wake up into a black and white frame.

She got up later in the evening when the doorbell rang. It was an old friend. He had sent her flowers.