HOLI HAI!! Colourful images from across the world

The festival of colours is back, and is immersing people with much needed joy and enthusiasm.

As revelers tumble out on the streets with gulal and colour-filled pichkaris, and fragrance of delicious sweets, especially gujiyas, fill our homes and hearts, its time to welcome the beautiful spring season and spread the message of love and brotherhood.

Holi has various legends associated with it. The foremost is the legend of demon King Hiranyakashyap who demanded everybody in his kingdom to worship him but his pious son, Prahlad became a devotee of Lord Vishnu.

Hiranyakashyap wanted his son to be killed. He asked his sister Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap, as Holika had a boon which made her immune to fire. Story goes that Prahlad was saved by Lord himself for his extreme devotion and evil minded Holika was burnt to ashes, for her boon worked only when she entered the fire alone.

Since that time, people light a bonfire, called Holika on the eve of Holi festival and celebrate the victory of good over evil and also the triumph of devotion to God.

Although Holi is celebrated in every part of India and many regions across the world in their own traditional ways, with different legends attached to them, the message is one: to keep aside grievances and embrace the joys of life.

Rediff.com presents a bunch of colourful images from across the world, and wishes each one of you a very HAPPY HOLI!!

In this picture, students, with their faces smeared in gulal, celebrate Holi, at a college in the Chandigarh.

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A person is thrown up by his friends while celebrating Holi in Kathmandu.

People throw gulal as they celebrate "Lathmar Holi" at village Nandgaon in Uttar Pradesh.

In a Holi tradition unique to Nandgaon and Barsana villages, men sing provocative songs to gain the attention of women, who then "beat" them with bamboo sticks.

People throw gulal during Holi at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, United States.

Students of Shantiniketan University, daubed in abeer, pose for a photograph as they celebrate Holi near Kolkata.

A teacher holds a plate with gulal before hurling it on her students as they celebrate Holi in Ahmedabad.

People smear each other with coloured powder to celebrate Holi inside a temple in Vrindavan near Mathura.

People arrive in a temple as others throw abeer to celebrate Holi in Vrindavan.

A man daubed in abeer lies on the ground as he celebrates "Lathmar Holi" at village Nandgaon in Uttar Pradesh.

Students of Rabindra Bharati University in Shantiniketan apply gulal to a fellow student's face as they celebrate Holi.