Today in religious celebrations that sound nice but are a little hard to wrap one's head around

The Indian festival of Holi marks the start of spring and the first harvest of the year, as my colleague Suryatapa Bhattacharya writes today in The National. It's usually celebrated over two days, and kicked off yesterday with people visiting their neighbours and friends, eating sweets and playfully "throwing dry powder and coloured water at each other".

Stores in Dubai have stocked up on the coloured powders, called gulal, which sell for a couple of dirhams and come in red, orange, green, yellow and blue. Apparently people load up water guns and soak each other.

I felt a little for Tushar Kumar, a construction worker who had to tone down his celebration a little due to a killjoy of a landlord in Musaffah:

“We are not allowed to play with colours in our living quarters,” he said.