Huranga is a game played between men and women a day after Holi in which men drench women with colours and the latter tear off the clothes of the men. Pic/AFP

There were three fires outside my building for Holi this year. They were lit less than 100 metres apart, by different groups of people who, I presume, had spent a long time struggling to understand the concept of group celebrations. There was a rivalry of sorts at play, I'm told, which made no sense because the only thing they could beat each other at was which of their members would suffer from a respiratory ailment sooner than the rest. A coconut tree caught fire around midnight, soon after one of the fires was lit, prompting members of one group of revellers to try and obtain water from a building terrace before burning leaves consumed their homes. It looked like a farcical scene from a comedy, except that the fire, smoke, and risk to life and property were all very real.