Lathmar Holi – A Colorful Battlefield

Lathmar Holi (Holy of Sticks) is a two-day, annual stick-and-color festival that aims to reenact, in living form, the legendary teasing love-play between the god Krishna and his beloved Radha - the episode in which Krishna and his friends invaded Radha’s village and were driven out by the women with sticks.

The festival unfolds across Barsana and Nandgaon, two rival “home towns” in the Braj region of Uttar Pradesh - the rural heartland of Krishna worship south of Delhi - where Barsana is revered as Radha’s birthplace and Nandgaon as Krishna’s boyhood home, making the two villages the natural opposing teams of the ritual.

Google Maps location of the main event activities can be found here.

The most popular features of the festival are:

• The Lathmar “Battle” of Rangili Gali — In Barsana’s main street below the Radha Rani Temple, hundreds of women in colorful traditional dress line both sides and strike men from Nandgaon with long bamboo sticks (lathis); the men carry only round shields (some of leather, some of cane), singing as they try to march through and douse the women in color.
• The Nandgaon Return Match — The next day the roles reverse: men from Barsana descend on Nandgaon, and Nandgaon’s women take up the sticks; the same playful chase unfolds in Krishna’s home village.
• Laddu Holi, the Sweet-Throwing Prelude — The day before the battle, devotees inside Barsana’s Radha Rani Temple hurl laddus (round Indian sweets made of gram flour and sugar) at each other in the temple courtyard, opening the Holi season in Barsana.
• Saffron Rain of Palash Flowers — Villagers splash visitors with kesudo, an infusion of palash (flame-of-the-forest, Butea monosperma) flowers soaked overnight to produce a natural saffron-colored dye with a faint floral taste — the “authentic” colors before synthetic gulal powder. [Source:
• Holi Songs of the Braj Tradition (Huriyarin’s Taunts) — Throughout the battle, the women sing traditional Braj folk songs (locally called huriyare/dhimag songs) that mock and tease the invading men, a sung taunt-war considered inseparable from the ritual.
• The Radha Rani Temple Darshan — Before and during the festivities, crowds climb to the hilltop Radha Rani (Shriji) Temple, where the deity of Radha is adorned for Holi; the temple steps and ramparts double as the festival’s grandstands.
• Color Chaos and Chanting — Amid the stick-play, clouds of pink, green and yellow gulal powder and sprayed colors envelop the crowd while drums and “Radhe Radhe” chants (a devotional refrain invoking Radha) fill the lanes.

Preceeding Day (Laddu Holi, Barsana)
Morning and midday: sweet-throwing inside the Radha Rani Temple.

Day 1 (Barsana)
Mid-morning, Nandgaon men (gops) arrive at the foot of the Radha Rani hill; around noon, color-throwing and song begin in Rangili Gali.
Early afternoon, the peak of the stick-and-shield battle; late afternoon, the crowd disperses downhill.

Day 2 (Nandgaon)
The mirror image - Barsana men arrive in Nandgaon and the local women take up the sticks, with the same midday peak and a slightly smaller crowd.