As Dhuleti and exams co-incide, schools, parents bar students from playing with colours this year.
A student of class X, Vishwa Thakkar, is fond of playing with colours, but this year, she plans not to participate in Dhuleti celebrations. Blame it on the board exam pressure, many like Thakkar have cancelled their plans to play either on their own or after being strictly warned by their schools and parents to stay away from the festivities.
“Many parents do not want their children to enjoy Dhuleti this year,” says Bijal Thakkar, mother of Vishwa. “As exams are going on, many of us fear that kids would be distracted. And there are also chances of them falling sick if they indulge in playing with coloured water, and illness may affect their performance,” says Parthi Shah, another parent.
As exams clash with Holi-Dhuleti celebrations, many leading schools of both English and Gujarati medium have dropped the plan of on-campus Dhuleti celebrations. Kulbhushan Kain, principal of Delhi Public School, Bopal says, “We do not want students to get distracted, so we have not allowed them to play with colours on campus this year.” Similarly Radhika Iyer, principal of Udgam School, says, “We have strictly asked students not to indulge in playing colours on school campus this year.”
Sure enough, this has led to clashes at many homes between parents and their wards. Dr Param Shukla, adolescent psychologist, says, “I have got about five cases of boys appearing in class XII board examination who overreacted and denied to study on the day of Dhuleti if their parents did not allow them to play colours. To balance the situation, I advised parents to allow them to play with dry colours for an hour on the festival day and also warned students that they may get distracted by festivities.”
