KARACHI: Holi, the Hindu festival of colour, held to celebrate the harvest season on the first full moon of March every year, was observed with simplicity this year. Due to the lunar eclipse on Tuesday, there was also some confusion regarding the actual date of the festival. Therefore, some among the Hindu community celebrated it on Monday, some on Tuesday and some more on Wednesday, though all did not do it in a public gathering. It was just a small affair at home, involving just family or a few friends. At temples, the focus was more on praying rituals.

“Well, Holi can be celebrated the entire week. But in view of the prevailing regional tensions along with security concerns, we are concentrating more on prayers this year rather than singing, dancing and playing with colours,” said Sangeeta Ahuja, who had specially come down from Larkana to Karachi to spend some quality time with her daughter, Hema, who is studying to be a doctor here.

“It has been a good little extended weekend that I spent here with my daughter, although the attack on Iran and the loss of their spiritual leader really saddens me,” Sangeeta added.

She also said that preparing and distributing sweetmeats during festivals such as Holi and Diwali is common, but this year she felt so sad that she did not even prepare the traditional halwa at home. “We just bought some mithai from the shop for prasad [sacred offering] during puja,” she said.

This year’s celebrations largely confined to homes and with minimal public gatherings at temples due to regional tensions

Kanji Mithu and his wife Sana were at the Shri Panch Mukhi Hanuman Mandir at Soldier Bazaar to pray. “We just took some colour from the temple for the children,” Kanji told Dawn as he and Sana rubbed pink and green powder colour on their kids, Nandini and Chandan’s cheeks in the temple courtyard amid squeals of laughter from them. “We just came here for the children,” he smiled.

The respected Hindu scholar Pandit Mukesh Kumar Maharaj P. Jedia said that his 50th birthday coincided with Holi this year. “So even if I was not going to go all out with the Holi celebrations, I will be celebrating my half-century,” he said while urging his friends and well-wishers in a video message to pray for him in his usual jovial style.

Meanwhile, at the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir on M.A. Jinnah Road, where there is a big celebration in the yard behind the temple and gurdwara each year, nothing was happening except for a couple of small stalls selling colour, which had no buyers. On being asked what he would do with his little pouches of colour now, Sandeep, the young man at the stall, said that he had been getting a few customers. “They are not buying from me and taking it home,” he said.

He did inform, though, that the praying ritual of Holi of setting ablaze the Holi Mata took place on Monday. “They did it in the ground though behind locked doors because large gatherings are discouraged this year,” he said.

Earlier, the Patron-in-Chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, had urged his community to limit large public gatherings in view of the prevailing regional tensions and security concerns.

“Holi this year will be observed in a spirit of peace, brotherhood, tolerance and interfaith harmony as the present situation in the country demands restraint, patience and collective responsibility,” he had said, adding that the patriotic Pakistani Hindu community has always played a positive role in promoting national unity, harmony, and interfaith cohesion.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2026