Phoolon Wali Holi (Banke Bihari Temple)

Of all the Holi celebrations scattered across Braj Bhoomi, Phoolon Wali Holi at the Banke Bihari temple is the gentlest and most photographed. It falls not on Holi itself but on Rangbharni Ekadashi, the eleventh day of the bright fortnight of Phalgun, roughly a week before the full-moon festival.

• In a single luminous morning, the temple courtyard becomes the stage for a tradition unique to Vrindavan: instead of coloured powder or coloured water, the sevayat priests climb the sanctum steps carrying baskets heaped with marigold, rose and other soft petals and, at a signal during darshan, hurl them in great fragrant sheets over the packed congregation.
• The petal shower is brief and deliberate.
• For about fifteen to twenty minutes the drums, cymbals and cries of "Radhe Radhe" build to a crescendo while wave after wave of blossoms drifts down onto upturned faces.
• It is Holi stripped of stain and mess, an offering of flowers rather than gulal, in keeping with the deity's tender child-form and the temple's insistence on a pure, unhurried devotion.
• Because the flowers are showered directly from the sanctum, the moment is treated as a leela, a divine play, rather than a public colour-fight.
• The Banke Bihari temple sits in Vrindavan's dense old lanes, about twelve kilometres north of Mathura.
• The presiding image, a small tribhanga figure of Krishna established from the worship tradition of the sixteenth-century mystic-musician Swami Haridas, is famously kept behind a curtain that is drawn shut every few moments so that no devotee gazes upon it too long; there is no bell and no conch inside, only kirtan.
• On the Ekadashi this reticent temple briefly bursts into abundance, which is precisely why pilgrims travel across India to be beneath the falling petals.
• For the vegetarian traveller Braj is wholly welcoming, since Vrindavan is a pure-vegetarian, egg-free town by long custom.
• After darshan you can share in temple prasad and pick up desi-ghee peda from a trusted Vrindavan halwai.
• One firm caution, though: Vrindavan and Mathura are heavy bhang (cannabis) country, and roadside stalls openly sell bhang thandai and bhang lassi around festival time under names almost identical to the ordinary drink.
• Never buy thandai from an unknown stall; stick to verified pure-veg kitchens listed below.