Divali has traditionally been associated with the vaisya class although every Hindu celebrates it. Similarly, Holi is a festival associated with the Sudras, the fourth class, and is celebrated in northern and central India. While not strictly a New Year festival, since the New Year begins two weeks later, many of its festivities are linked with the destruction in flames of the old and the bringing in of the new. It occurs at the time of the spring harvest and is associated with riotous merriment. Because it welcomes spring, it is an outdoor festival, although in Britain it is often celebrated in February. In Indian villages, bonfires are lit and mothers often carry their babies five times in a clockwise direction around the fire, so that Agni the god of Fire will bless the babies with a successful life. People throw coloured powder dyes over everyone they meet or use such things as bicycle pumps to squirt this coloured water over anyone they can.
 
     Holi possibly derives its name from Holika. Holika was the daughter of the mythical King Hiranyakasipu who commanded everyone to worship him. His little son Prahlada refused to do so and even learnt his alphabet with the names of the Gods - V = Visnu, S = Siva, etc. His father ordered Holika to kill him and she, possessing the ability to walk through fire unharmed, picked up the child and walked into a fire with him. Prahlada, however, chanted the names of God and was saved. Holika perished because she did not know that her powers were only effective if she entered the fire alone. The practice of hurling cowdung into the fire and shouting obscenities at it, as if at Holika, suggests a strong association of the festival with this particular story. But others celebrate Holi in memory of Krisna. In the legends about Krisna as a youth he is depicted as getting up to all sorts of pranks with the gopis or cowgirls. One prank was to throw coloured powder all over them, so at Holi images of Krisna and his consort Radha are often carried through the streets. Holi occurs at the hottest time of the year and is characterized by heated' behaviour. At this festival practices are allowed which could not obtain at other times. It is obviously easy to victimize someone with whom an old score has to be settled, and there is much obscene behaviour connected with phallic themes. There is a relaxation of normal caste rules, though not to the extent that Brahmins and dalits would engage in any kind of contact, and servants do not take advantage of their masters. Yet some sources suggest that dalits will chase Brahmins, and labourers wives have been known to beat the shins of their rich high-caste farmers. Women; especially, enjoy the freedom of relaxed rules and sometimes join in the merriment rather aggressively. It is a time too when meat can be eaten by vegetarians, a time when pollution is not important, a time for license and obscenity in place of the usual caste and societal restrictions. Coming at the hottest time of the year, it is a means for people themselves to release heat, to let off steam!