New Delhi, India, was just about to get more chaotic, yet more beautiful than ever. As I opened the front door of my rickety ground floor apartment leading to the streets, I was greeted with one of the most exotic sites one could see on this earth. As I stood in my doorway in awe of the majestic sight of every color imaginable flying through the polluted air of India in the form of a powdery substance, reality of the situation finally set in when I was struck in the face with a handful of indigo colored powder presented from a young playful Indian boy.

Happy Holi!,” he screamed, jumping up and down with an indescribably large amount of positive energy and joy flowing through him. As I was still trying to wipe the powder from my eyes, he grabbed me by the hand and started leading me through the colorful, crowded streets of New Delhi. As we were speed walking to an unknown destination, I took a minute to observe my surroundings. The first thing that I noticed was the fact that there were only a handful of girls in the midst of a million men. Wondering where all the women were during this nationwide celebration, it finally hit me through the form of a gust of wind bringing the delicious smell of Indian curry along with flurry of colored powder. The women were making a sad, yet common sacrifice, to stay at home and prepare lunch followed by dinner for their family battling it out on the streets with handfuls of colored powder and the occasional water gun.

As we turned off of the main road into some alleyways, the chaos of colors didn’t yield. I could’ve sworn that every man in India was out there battling it out with color in his hand. Turning through these small, windy and hectic alleyways, I started getting anxious and wondering what this young random Indian man named Raju had on the horizon for a white kid like me. As we were weaving through the alleys, I got nailed with a bunch of colored powder by young playful boys. However, I couldn’t help but be happy with their radiant laughs flowing through to me. As we turned the corner of this transformed dark and dingy alley to colorful alley, my surroundings started becoming familiar and I had a faint idea of where we were. Squinting my eyes from all the colored powder that my face had absorbed through this mysterious and unexpected journey, I got a glimpse of my apartment building though the clouds of color, which filled the air. As we neared my apartment, my new friend, Raju, said an informal goodbye in the form of red powder meeting my face. As I entered my doorway as the sun was setting, as I took one last look back at the magnificence of this holiday, I realized that this young Indian man had indirectly shown me the journey one takes is just as vital as their final destination.