Holi was, unsurprisingly, my favourite festival as a child growing up in pre-Mumbai Bombay.
Buckets full of water balloons painstakingly filled and knotted overnight. Packets of colourful powders just waiting to be burst open, ready to be flung at will. Being allowed to head to the playground early, stay late and get as grubby as I liked. What’s not to love?
The night before Holi, my little suburban community would come together to light a bonfire packed with cow dung, its flames malodorous but mesmerising. Songs were chanted, deities and demons appeased, sweetmeats passed around.
The odd water balloon was thrown from a rooftop in vain attempts to extinguish the fire by anonymous miscreants. It was all taken in good spirits, though – at least among us children, if not the unsuspecting adults. The cantankerous aunties (the ones who didn’t return cricket balls that crashed through their windows) got the worst of it, much to our juvenile glee.
We celebrated with dozens of neighbours who brought water guns that got fancier with each passing year
In the 1990s, it was not uncommon to start playing days in advance, or to go Holi-hopping all around town as various friends and family invited us over to celebrate.
My favourite childhood memory remains making a beeline for “nani house”, the phrase that represents the special bond many children share with their maternal grandparents. Water and colours aside, there was always sticky gheeyar to eat and kharchi envelopes to pocket.
The party itself was held on the lawn of the high-rise my grandparents lived in, with dozens of neighbours and their various relatives in attendance. They brought water guns that got fancier with each passing year, and bathing tubs filled with coloured water to dunk people in. Community living at its coolest, at least from a tween’s point of view.
And then something changed.
Childhood friends moved away or moved apart. The festival lost its lustre as hard-to-wash “chemical” colours flooded the market. And eggs and tomatoes began making the rounds at increasingly rowdy celebrations. As a teenager, I was not as keen on triple-shampooing my (oh, the irony) chemically straightened hair.
So eventually, I stopped playing and celebrating for more than a decade.
When I moved to Dubai in 2012, at the ripe old age of 29, a friend invited me to her annual Holi bash. It’s the perfect opportunity to meet others from the Indian community, she insisted. And so I went.
That first time, as I mingled with strangers in this most casual yet intimate of settings of splashing water and applying coloured powder, my reservations evaporated. I returned home with a long list of numbers on my phone, some of whom are now on my speed-dial.
Since then, I’ve attended Holi parties in the UAE every single year, both commercial and homebound. I was at the one in Meydan that had famed Indian performers Kanika Kapoor and DJ Nucleya, as well as the one at JA Beach Hotel, with its makeshift Holi pool, 10 times the size of the tubs I’d jump into in another time and place.
Last year, I took my four-year-old daughter for a Holi-themed party to a friend’s house. It was at once delightful and nostalgic seeing her douse intimidating strangers with a water pistol nearly as broad as she is tall. A shy girl usually, she didn’t think twice before chasing children and grown-ups she had only just met – powder-dunked fingers outstretched to make palm imprints on their already colour-soaked clothes. Mini-me much?
So memories of my own childhood shenanigans came flooding back and I found myself reaching out to friends from back home, to exchange “happy Holi” greetings and plan long-overdue catch-ups.
The festival of colours might well be renamed the festival of camaraderie.
Karwaan
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar
Rating: 4/5
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Top goalscorers in Europe
34 goals - Robert Lewandowski (68 points)
34 - Ciro Immobile (68)
31 - Cristiano Ronaldo (62)
28 - Timo Werner (56)
25 - Lionel Messi (50)
*29 - Erling Haaland (50)
23 - Romelu Lukaku (46)
23 - Jamie Vardy (46)
*NOTE: Haaland's goals for Salzburg count for 1.5 points per goal. Goals for Dortmund count for two points per goal.
THE SPECS
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 275hp at 6,600rpm
Torque: 353Nm from 1,450-4,700rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
Top speed: 250kph
Fuel consumption: 6.8L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: Dh146,999
Muguruza's singles career in stats
WTA titles 3
Prize money US$11,128,219 (Dh40,873,133.82)
Wins / losses 293 / 149
ENGLAND SQUAD
Joe Root (captain), Dom Sibley, Rory Burns, Dan Lawrence, Ben Stokes, Ollie Pope, Ben Foakes (wicketkeeper), Moeen Ali, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes, Jack Leach, Stuart Broad
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
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The view from The National
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology, a digital system in which data is recorded across multiple places at the same time. Unlike traditional databases, DLTs have no central administrator or centralised data storage. They are transparent because the data is visible and, because they are automatically replicated and impossible to be tampered with, they are secure.
The main difference between blockchain and other forms of DLT is the way data is stored as ‘blocks’ – new transactions are added to the existing ‘chain’ of past transactions, hence the name ‘blockchain’. It is impossible to delete or modify information on the chain due to the replication of blocks across various locations.
Blockchain is mostly associated with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Due to the inability to tamper with transactions, advocates say this makes the currency more secure and safer than traditional systems. It is maintained by a network of people referred to as ‘miners’, who receive rewards for solving complex mathematical equations that enable transactions to go through.
However, one of the major problems that has come to light has been the presence of illicit material buried in the Bitcoin blockchain, linking it to the dark web.
Other blockchain platforms can offer things like smart contracts, which are automatically implemented when specific conditions from all interested parties are reached, cutting the time involved and the risk of mistakes. Another use could be storing medical records, as patients can be confident their information cannot be changed. The technology can also be used in supply chains, voting and has the potential to used for storing property records.
Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
