Indian tradition says a widow will spend her life in seclusion, mourning her husband and avoiding public gatherings. If she comes to a wedding, she is thought to bring bad luck to the family. If she comes to a birth ceremony, she brings bad luck to the baby.After her husband dies, she will wear only white, Hinduism’s color of mourning. As much as she can, she will live a life without color.So when Holi arrives, the festival of spring and India’s riotous annual celebration of color, when friends and strangers shower one another with colored water and bright powders, she is supposed to disappear into the background.