With the advent of festival of colours Holi, a fairly larger number of boisterous youths catches on the revelry of sporting colours, oblivious of the fact that presently most of the marketed colours are just synthetic chemicals containing a blend of cognizably toxic heavy metal compounds. Spraying of these hazardous colours on people invariably causes multiple skin and eye problems every year.
A leading ophthalmologist of Moradabad Dr Yogesh Pandey states, “ On the day of Holi we treat a large number of cases of Corneal Ulcer, Conjectival Haemorrhage, conjunctivitis etc which on being neglected may even result in complete loss of eye sight”.
“I shudder to recall how a young man in my neighborhood lost his eye sight when some of his mischievous friends, bent on playing Holi colours with him, forcefully smeared his face with dangerously toxic silver-grey metal paint that filled one of his eyes as well”, recalls pensively Mr Ashesh Jha, a school teacher in Moradabad. “That’s why I always celebrate Holi with herbal gulal only”, he fervently adds.
Highly toxic colours which are usually sold in paste form by some greedy marketeers are as follows:
Red colour from Mercuric Oxide
Purple from Chromium Iodide
Yellow from Cadmium Sulphide
Green from copper sulphate, popularly called tootia.
Black from Lead Sulphide
Silver from Aluminium Bromide ( a carcinogen)
Glitter from Mica and powdered glass.
The gulal contains a toxic colourant and a base which is invariably asbestos or silica. Organic compounds such as Aniline which is used to prepare textile dye are also used along with metal, glass powder and mica. “All of these toxicants are highly dangerous to the skin, eyes, ears, lungs, can result in kidney failure and may even be cancerous (carcinogenic)”, cautions Dr S M Sapatnekar, Director, Haffkins Institute.
These toxic pigments obstinately bind to skin and do not easily get washed away and eventually flow in drain water and pollute the soil and the ground water.Mud, grease, enamel paint and even cow dung are recklessly used by the hooligans which causes a lot of skirmishes, resentment, embarrassment and among the people. Mature people and women generally keep themselves away from this sort of filthy revelry. Dr Mrs Ranjana Narang recalls an old clumsy event when some hooligans forcefully applied some hair remover powder in gulal on the hair of her colleague.
Nature has provided so many vibrant and fragrant colours that one would never need resort to the use of toxic colours. Brilliant hues of red, green and purple are derived from flowers of Tesu (flame of the forest), Harsingar, Marigold, Hibiscus, rose, Indian Coral tree, Henna and numerous other organic sources. Dried flowers are powdered to make gulal and the concentrated water extract is used to make wet colours. These colours are soft to human skin and rather have therapeutic value.
The health department must launch a stringent drive against sellers of the toxic colours and forthwith seize their evil stocks to safeguard precious health of common people. The Ministry of Information should well in advance make an effort to inform public against the use of hazardous colours.
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