Just after dawn, on March 14, 1979, I was traveling on a train, somewhere in India.

I would have been in the 3rd class (cheapest) compartment – since I was a backpacker, traveling on the cheap. As I often did, I had booked an overnight train to save a few rupees on a hotel room. Even so, I was running out of money (a detail I would never reveal to my mother in my letters back home!).

I was reading a fascinating book about the 1947 Partition when the British finally agreed to pull out of India. Their hastily conceived plan divided British India along broad religious lines – neglecting to consider the challenge of migration as millions of Muslims lived in what would become Hindu-majority India and huge numbers of Hindus and Sikhs lived in what would be Muslim-majority Pakistan.

In the days, weeks and months that followed, 15 million Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs -fearing discrimination – swapped countries in one of the largest human migrations in history. Trainloads of people were attacked in the horrific sectarian violence.

As a sheltered young woman from the American Midwest, it was shocking to fathom such hatred and violence – in the name of religion. I was equally fascinated and horrified by this bit of history I’d never known about.

My train pulled into a station and a young man staggered, breathless, into the carriage. His white cotton kurta covered in blood. He ran through the car, looking back to see if his attackers were following.

Maybe my mother was right – it was dangerous to be traveling alone in such a godforsaken country!

I sat – panic-stricken – on the hard wooden bench seat. As a white woman in India, it was often assumed I was British. Strangely, nobody else in the car seemed distressed. Some of them were smiling. A few even laughed out loud.

The train pulled out of the station and I was relieved. And puzzled about what I had just seen. The morning light revealed familiar scenes of India: people squatting near the tracks for their morning “constitutional,” farmers leading his reluctant water buffalo, and a skinny man pedaling a sturdy bicycle loaded with two large aluminum canisters.

And an unfamiliar scene, too: people of all ages, wearing the familiar white cotton kurta – smattered with bright colors. Their faces and hair were smeared with orange, yellow and green. They were smiling. Chasing each other with handfuls of colorful powder. I realized that the man in the car was not bloodied. This was Holi – the festival of spring. It marked the end of winter, an opportunity to repair and renew relationships, and an opportunity for fun and frivolity.

When I arrived at my guest house later that morning, the proprietor warned me against going out. “You’ll be a target, he warned.”

And so I listened. And I’ve regretted it all my life.

I vowed to one day, be back in India, to celebrate Holi.

It’s March 2, 2018 – 39 years ago – and today is the day!

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I’ll post another blog . . . but here are a few photos of yesterday’s pre-Holi preparations!

Stay tuned for more!!!