Prayagraj markets buzzing with Holi shopping

PRAYAGRAJ: There is no festival more vibrant, colourful and exhilarating than Holi. Everyone wants to enjoy it—to dance in clouds of gulal and to get soaked in a shower of coloured water and spending hours in making last minute purchases makes the festival more special.
And now with just a few days left for the festival, markets of the city are buzzing with hectic activities. From gujia, khoya, papad, gulal, sprinklers, colours etc, there is something for every age group. All markets, be it the major once like Chowk, Katra, Civil Lines, Kydganj etc or the prominent locality based including Talirgunj, Rajroopur, Rajapur, Preetam Nagar etc, witnessed hectic activities with buyers busy purchasing several items associated with the festival.

Be it the stalls selling gujia, gulal, colours, cap, masks, pichkari, water-balloons, papad’s of various tastes and colours etc, the shopkeepers are doing good business. Besides, different flavours of namkeen and sweets, Gujia being the foremost, are also among the hot favourites in the markets. Likewise, the shops selling readymade garments are also witnessing a bee line of customers. The shops at Civil Lines, Katra and Kydganj are full of new stock of readymade garments, matching the choice of both youngsters and middle-aged people. Among several outfits, kurta-pyjama is the most picked outfit of the customers.

“I was promising my son to buy pichkaris and colours for the last three day but it was only on Saturday that I was able to take my family for shopping and what else could be high on priority than buying a new dress and a pair of shoes for the little champ”, said Anurag, a resident of Fetehpur Bichuwa. I was both surprised and happy when my son stressed on purchasing herbal colours and especially those who would be easy to wash, he added.
Along with these, many of the roadside vendors are seen selling synthetic colours, paints and even varnish, both in golden and silver colour. “Many of the Holi colours, being sold these days, contain many harmful chemicals, some even having dyes meant for industrial uses like dying textiles and are not meant to be applied on humans. These colours contain heavy metals, acids and powdered glass”, informed former head of the department of Chemistry, Allahabad University, Prof Jagdamba Singh. The black paste, that the youngsters use, has lead oxide, green contains copper sulphate, red is mercury sulfate etc and all these are toxic and can result in skin allergies, eye irritation etc, he added.