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holi

Last Saturday, March 9, 2013, the Indian Sub-Continent Club organized the Holi festival here on campus at the Rugby field. Look at the pictures posted on Facebook, and you’ll know that you missed a big deal if you weren’t there. Well, we’ll have it next year too!

India celebrates Holi, an annual festival that occurs on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of Phalguna (in March). It is the Thanksgiving festival of India and celebrates spring, a bountiful harvest and commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is also a time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking. The day before the festival, a bonfire is lit to commemorate the burning of the evil king’s aunt named Holika.  Colored powder, ‘gulal’ (the color red) in particular, are showered on people dressed in white. People use water balloons, water pistons (or large syringes called ‘pichkaris’) and even water hoses to squirt colored water on each other. Snacks and a milk-based cool drink known as ‘thandai’ are often served and people wish each other a ‘Happy Holi’. This year, Holi falls on March 27. Whole communities come together to celebrate this festival, without being affected by distinctions of caste, creed, race or gender.

Dancing to the beats of popular Bollywood music and gorging on mouth-watering ‘samosas’ and kesar milk, participants simply had a blast, a much-required respite in this finals week.

Holi hai!

(Picture Courtesy – Shaival Choksi, Vice President, ShutterClub)