Austrian tourist suffers eye injury after Holi mishap in Vrindavan

Vrindavan: An Austrian tourist’s Holi experience in Uttar Pradesh‘s Vrindavan derailed after someone threw ground colour mixed with stones directly into her eye, resulting in serious damage to her cornea.

While Holi is fun for most, men usually use the “Bura na maano Holi hai” tradition as an excuse to grope, harass or force colour on women. The Austrian tourist Britta Schlagbauer specifically described how the festival is more difficult for foreign women.

Schlagbauer shared her day celebrating Holi in Vrindavan on Instagram, noting that it was exciting at first. “Celebrate Holi in Vrindavan, but things didn’t go as planned,” she said. The celebration started with friends, colours and what she called “crazy Holi energy.”

She got some scarves, drank bhaang, ate food, visited temples and saw that even animals were covered in colour. “Holi was wild and beautiful.” However, it became less fun. “For women, it just wasn’t fun,” Schlagbauer said, adding that most women get colour thrown on them by strangers without their consent.

With colour “slammed” into their faces in frequent bursts, her day took a turn for the worse when someone threw colour from the ground that had stones mixed in it.

“Unfortunately, someone picked up colour from the ground with stones and threw it straight into my eyes. It burned like hell,” said Britta.

Although she washed it out immediately, her vision remained blurry days after the incident. “Holi is magical, but as a woman, especially as a foreign woman, it’s not always easy.”

She acknowledged that although the incident disrupted her day, she would still celebrate Holi in India again, “but differently.”

Schlagbauer ended the video with a message to all women, “Celebrate Holi but stay safe.”