Holi or Fagu, the festival of color, falling in the month of March, fagu purnima (full moon day) according to Nepali calendar, is a colorfully distinct and unique festival in Hindu culture, celebrated amid greater jubilance and festivity by the Hindu youth-boys and girls-in particular. On this day, all young and old, usually garbed in white costume, wearing red-powder on their foreheads, and varieties of liquid colors thrown on their white kurta pyzama or pant shirts, wander in groups from place to place reaching their friends, relatives, kin and kith, hugging each other, receiving and offering the red powders on foreheads. The mood and the atmosphere is one of the state of happiness, victory. In similar fashion, the young girls and women of the household, too, play Holi among themselves, friends and kith and kin.

To add intensity to the holi mood or to forget their sufferings, perhaps, the youth consume opium paste called Shiva buti or ghotta which adds momentum to the festivity. The revelers sing and dance in a complete state of happiness wearing strange look, a bizarre appearance, resulting from the applying of several colors on their faces. At times, the Holi festival perverts when the Holi revelers get down to filthy ways and means transcending the festive limits. In Manu cases, the revelers are seen hurling muds and stinkingly dirty waters on passerby which has often triggered disputes leading to unpleasant situation. However, the perverted form of holi festival usually takes place in Nepals Terai.

On this day, sweets and Sarbat mixed in opium paste are served among the holi revelers. In Hindu culture, the stimulating substances like opium and marijuana are considered holy ingredients used by Lord Shiva considered as Shivas offerings. In Fagu Purnima or Holi falling immediately after Shivaratri, the festival of worshipping lord shiva, Bhang (opium paste) is abundantly used in all sweets and sweet drinks which the Holi makers eat and drink to create the mood of Holi festivity. The significance of Holi festival, like other Hindu festivals in Hindu mythology, is of greater theological importance. The victory of good over evil remaining the underlying theme of all Hindu religious scriptures, epics and mythologies, the legend related to the Holi festival too, carry this very theological theme. The tradition in the Terai of Nepal and India has it that a day before holi festival ceremonially observed, the local youth collects, to some extent steal wood and timber in the evening from the vicinity and pile them up in some isolated field where they, after observing some rituals, set the wood on fire. The heap of dried timber and wood keeps burning for hours and hours while the youth dance and sing around the flames. Once the fire cools down and is reduced to ashes and charcoal, the youth pink the ashes and place them on their forehead as blessing victory or the death of the evil.

In many cases, the youth frame an effigy of Holika- the evil, and place it on the piles of wood before they set them on flame. This is how the Holi festival opens. In this way, the destruction of evil the Holika in her own flame is celebrated in the name of Holi festival.