In Mathura, they celebrate ?laathmaar? Holi. The women of the community come out with sticks and bludgeon the men, who must defend themselves with shields. It?s all in good fun, apparently, but all across north India you can sense a sigh of envy rising from the female population.

For young students at Delhi University, the week leading up to Holi is a nightmare. The unbridled sexual licence was once a relatively innocent part of the festival, a way to loosen strict societal restrictions on meetings between young men and women. In much of the north, though, Holi has turned into a festival of ritualised abuse.

Every year, the good souls who police Delhi, post portentous notices warning the ?youth? against ?misbehaviour?. Every year, women in markets, on campuses, in their own neighbourhoods are subject to raids by water-balloons filled with mud and stones, or targetted by groups of men, often high on bhang or alcohol, for what amounts to virtual assault. A refusal to play Holi is not an option; fuelled by too many silly Hindi film songs glorifying the festival as an occasion for leering and lunging, those tolis or groups are not willing to take no for an answer.

Women deal with Holi by barricading themselves indoors as much as possible. They try not to travel on that day because buses and trains will be filled with drunken celebrants who will undoubtedly attempt to feel them up under the guise of applying gulal. They avoid the roads on which gangs of boys on scooters and motorcycles roar up and down, looking for a likely victim. What was meant to be a festival that celebrated spring has become an object lesson in the effects of sexual repression and what happens if you take the lid off a cauldron of repressed men for just one day.

But for another section of women, Holi has actually provided a form of liberation and independence, in a curious marriage of ecological awareness and entrepreneurship. Many years back, no one who celebrated Holi worried greatly about what went into those colours ? whether it was mica or carcinogenic additives. Over the last few years, though, there?s been a slow but strong movement in favour of eco-friendly, naturally produced colours, made from tesu flowers and haldi and natural dyes.

This wouldn?t have gone very far if you hadn?t had the marketing outlets in place, selling everything from branded herbal toothpastes and creams to Turkish Evil Eye amulets. With their support, though, and with a growing realisation that it was actually more pleasant to play Holi with colours that didn?t damage the eyes and skin, the new, natural products took off.

Most of these are produced by co-operatives across India that employ women from disadvantaged backgrounds. For some of them, this is the first time in their lives that they have earned a salary; you can hear in their voices the pride they take in producing gulals and colours of a quality ?you can use on a baby?. Those are the women I have in mind when I think of the standard greeting, Happy Holi; the rest will have to duck and hide, as usual ? or arm themselves with sticks and sail forth!