Celebrating Holi

We're about to go into the temple, but before we go in we've got to take our shoes off. It's our way of keeping the temple special – and clean, I suppose. At home we worship at our shrine but here in the temple we get together with friends and relatives to worship. 

Sumedh and his friend both touch the bottom of the statue. 

Everyone sits on the floor in the temple. The temple is very beautiful and colourful. Look, it has statues of the gods, and shrines just like we have at home. There are carvings of elephants too. Behind the curtain is the Balaji god. We leave presents for the gods.

Burning sticks.

Those sticks are called incense sticks and give the temple a lovely smell. 

Our temple is like a temple you would find in the south of India. Everyone is welcome here, especially today. 

It's time for us to eat now. The temple gives everyone a wonderful meal in the marquee. Loads and loads of people come every single day, but if there's functions or things like that there's like thousand one hundred, one million something like that for an estimate. Other religions and other people can come to the temple if they want 'cause it don't really matter for us. Makes my stomach rumble when I smell the smells, 'cause it's just, oh man, can't describe it. Mmmm, nice hot food is good for you.

There's my dad over there. Remember, don't tell anyone, we've got a colourful, messy surprise planned for him in mind. That reminds me, we'd better get changed into our old clothes now.

We've got our old clothes on now. It's time for the fun to begin, yeah! The bags of paint that we have been busy preparing are going to be handed out now. 

Can we start now?

Aha, the colourful messy surprise was throwing paint. It's a trick to play on people just like Lord Krishna did.

We love throwing the paint. [Happy Holi!] It's really fun. Dad hasn't got any paint on him yet. I think it's time for him to get some paint on now. This is the moment when I get to play the trick on my dad, yay! Look how much paint is on my dad. It's nearly as much as me.

Everyone's throwing paint at each other.

After the paint-throwing we get cleaned up and ready for the evening celebrations. At Holi, a bonfire's lit. You have to stay back to keep safe. The bonfire's colourful like the paints we were throwing. It's really bright. Thanks for coming to see our Holi celebration. It's great to celebrate. Bye! 

© BBC