As the nation celebrated Holi, even Google couldn't resist playing with colours and dedicated its Doodle to one of the biggest festivities of India. The Google, on Monday, 'honoured the Holi festival', by giving its letters a fresh set of colours. The cute Doodle shows a bunch of people running across the screen, throwing powdery colours at each other and at Google letters.
In Google's own words, “Doodles are the fun, surprising, and sometimes spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists, pioneers, and scientists.”
Marking the occasion of Holi, in a blog post, Google said: “Today, the Google letters are taking on a fresh set of colors in honor of the Holi festival. Coinciding with the arrival of spring, the vibrant celebration looks a lot like the Doodle: people run around happily covering each other in a rainbow of powdery hues.”
“Amid the cloud of red, blue, yellow, green, and everything in between, festival-goers can often be found laughing, singing, and dancing in the streets. The joyous event, which takes place in India, Nepal, and other countries around the world, traditionally marks the triumph of good over evil. It also gives family and friends a chance to simply come together, enjoying a spirited “Festival of Colors” that undoubtedly lives up to its name,” it added.
Holi coincides with the beginning of the spring and celebrates the victory of good over evil. Spread over two days, the first day of Holi is celebrated on the full-moon day of the Hindu calender month of Fagun, when people light a traditional bonfire in the evening to symbolise Holika Dahan, a significant event in Hindu mythology. The next day, people smear each other in vibrant colours. The story behind Holi and the way it is celebrated varies from region to region, even within India.
The increasing popularity of Holi, world over, could be traced by following the journey of the Google's Holi Doodle. So far, the Google has launched seven Doodles dedicated to the Indian festival of colours. The first Holi Doodle was released 16 years ago on March 9, 2001. Then its reach was limited to India. In 2015, with Google fifth Holi Doodle, the reach increased to include Canada, Kenya, South Africa and the UK. Last year, the Google launched two versions of Holi Doodle, one of India and other for Nepal (Holika). While Holika Doodle's reach was restricted to Nepal, the Indian Holi Doodle found its way from India into Canada, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Sweden and Latvia. This year again, Google has launched two versions of the Doodle, one strictly for Nepal and the other one for India, which reaches out to the US, Canada, Iceland, Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Japan and Taiwan.
The Google came up with its first Doodle in 1998, even before the company was incorporated. Then, Google founders Larry and Sergey casually played with the company logo by placing a stick figure drawing behind the second “o” in the word, Google, to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. Later, the revised logo was used as a comical message to Google users that the founders were “out of office,” hence, the concept of using Google Doodle was born.
