3 Uttarakhand villages that don’t celebrate Holi due to a curse by an ancient Goddess

Three remote villages in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag district do not celebrate the festival of colours— Holi— which heralds the season of spring in the country.

Locals believe that celebrating the festival may bring suffering for villagers due to a curse given 400 years ago by Goddess Tripura Bala Tripur Sundari, who wanted to stay away from colours.

According to the locals, the residents of these three villages migrated from Kashmir and settled in Kweeli, Khurjan and Jaundla villages around 400 years ago.

DR Purohit, an expert in performing arts of Garhwal, whose family was also part of that migration said, “The Rajput Bisht clan used to live in these three villages earlier but after there were large scale deaths due to Cholera and Chicken pox, the whole clan believing that three villages were cursed by Goddess Tripura Bala Tripur Sundari. So they left in haste and settled elsewhere.”

“Their exit was followed by the Pandey clan who also left the three villages in a hurry. Later seven castes of purohits (priests) and four castes of Negi Rajputs came from Kashmir and settled in Kotha village in Chamoli district, in Tharali region of Rudraprayag district and in these three villages of Rudraprayag that do not celebrate Holi to this day,” he added.

Villagers believe that the Goddess does not like noise and colours and if anyone tries to celebrate the festival, they suffer due to the curse of the Goddess. Since that time, the villagers from these three villages do not celebrate Holi.

Currently, there are more than 47 villages of Purohits and Negis in the area and there is a custom that Negis will only have food prepared by the cooks from the priest community of purohits. “The villagers who settled outside these three villages celebrate Holi as is done by my family that has settled in Kotha village in Chamoli district,” DR Purohi added.