The festival of Holi has reached the fourth stratagem — danga, the fight with sticks. Radhika's sakhis beat their drums and sing the songs of Holi; on Krishna's side too the drums sound and the songs rise, and each side pelts the other with taunts. Then the gopis take up their lati — the lati-mar-holi begins. They dance with the sticks: striking their own against their own, crossing them with another's, dropping one to the ground for a friend to snatch mid-air, tossing sticks up and catching each other's. The gopis move in a single formation and lead the dance — very beautifully, very delicately, with virtuoso artistry. And the boys watch wide-eyed and take it as a challenge: "We can do that too!" Whatever complicated move the gopis throw off, these coward boys leap in right after — flinging their sticks, crossing them, straining to copy step for step. The contest flares hotter and hotter — and a real war is now only a breath away. The gopis' beauty was so artful that the boys could not bear it and took the dance for a dare.