The festival begins weeks earlier with chowtal singing — traditional songs performed in groups that travel from house to house and community to community. Chowtal has a call-and-response structure: a lead singer calls out a phrase and the group answers in harmony, with the dholak drum keeping the beat. By the morning of Phagwah, everyone has been hearing and singing chowtal for weeks.
On the day itself, the colour begins. People fill squirt guns, balloons and spray bottles with coloured water, or scoop handfuls of bright powder called abir. The streets become a rainbow of red, blue, yellow, green and pink. Nobody is safe — friends drench friends, strangers spray strangers, and by midday almost everyone is completely covered in every colour imaginable.
Phagwah is celebrated across Guyana by people of all backgrounds. Indo-Guyanese communities brought the festival from India when their great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents came to work in Guyana more than 150 years ago. But over generations, Phagwah became something shared — a day when all of Georgetown's communities celebrate together.
After the colour-throwing, families gather for special food — pholourie (fried dough balls with mango chutney), mithai (Indian sweets) and fresh coconut water. Everyone is stained and laughing, and the streets stay colourful for days after as the powder slowly washes away in the rain.