“Last Holi, I had just finished celebrating with my friends and was walking towards my house when a group of youngsters on motorcycles passed me. As their motorcycles zipped past, one of them threw colours straight into my eyes. I realised that I couldn’t open my eyes,” recalls Kumar.

Some people came to his aid and took him to the doctor as an emergency case.

“I had to be operated upon. For the first time, I realised how dangerous it could be to handle colours recklessly,” says Kumar, who works as a car-driver.

Dr Rajan Chugh, who runs an eye clinic in Sector 21, has a similar experience to narrate. “A couple walked into my clinic on Holi last year. They had abandoned their 11-month-old daughter’s first Holi celebrations in the middle. Colour had got into the child’s eyes and mouth as the relatives went overboard celebrating with the infant. As an emergency treatment, we had to give anesthesia to the child to wash her mouth and eyes to remove the colours. It is not a very good idea to administer anaesthesia to such young children. But it was the only option,” says the doctor.

* Celebrate but do not forcibly throw colours and water at people

* Avoid throwing colour on the face, a small tilak should

be sufficient

* Do not throw water balloons from a distance