Rangbhari Ekadashi Palki Yatra

Rangbhari Ekadashi is the day Varanasi begins to play Holi — not with strangers, but with its own presiding deity. Falling on the eleventh lunar day of the bright fortnight of Phalguna (late February or early March), it marks the gauna of Mata Gauri: the ceremonial homecoming when, days after their Mahashivratri wedding in the Himalaya, Shiva finally brings his bride to his eternal city.

• Kashi treats it exactly as a household would treat a beloved daughter-in-law's first arrival — with music, sweets, showers of flowers, and fistfuls of abir and gulal.
• Locals say the tradition of Parvati's gauna on this day belongs to Kashi alone and is celebrated nowhere else in India, which lends the whole affair the tenderness of a family occasion rather than the spectacle of a public fair.
• The heart of the day is the Palki Yatra.
• The silver utsava idols of Shiva and Parvati are carried from the residence of the Mahant of the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Tedhi Neem, through the twisting galis past Navagraha, Sakshi Vinayak and Dhundhiraj Ganesh, and on to the sanctum of the Vishwanath Dham.
• The palanquin typically sets out in the late afternoon, and by then Vishwanath Gali is packed shoulder to shoulder, the air itself turned pink and saffron with thrown colour.
• Devotees sing, dance and press forward for a glimpse of the divine couple; the moment the palki appears, a wave of gulal rises over the crowd.
• It is said that from the very next day Shiva takes his colours to the cremation grounds for the famous Masan Holi, and the whole city then plays until Holi proper.
• A note for vegetarian travellers, who will feel entirely at home here: this is a wholly sattvic celebration built around milk, sweets and colour, with no meat and no alcohol anywhere in the ritual.
• The offerings are gulal, flowers, milk and mithai, and the surrounding lanes brim with pure-vegetarian legends — the chaat counters of Kashi Chat Bhandar at Godowlia, the century-old jalebi and rabri of Ram Bhandar in Thatheri Bazar, and full thalis at Keshari near Godowlia.
• One honest caution unrelated to food purity: Varanasi's famous thandai is sometimes laced with bhang (cannabis), so always ask explicitly for plain thandai or a simple sweet lassi, especially on a festival day when the lanes are crowded.
• Come for the devotion and stay for the colour, but come prepared: wear old clothes, oil your hair and skin, carry only a little cash and an ID, and be ready to move slowly in a jubilant, gulal-filled crush that is one of the most joyful mornings in the Hindu calendar.