Posted on April 3, 2008
It didn’t look like spring when Holi, the Hindu spring festival, began. With temperatures in the low 40s and threatening gray skies on Sunday, few people arrived exactly at 2 p.m.
However, the afternoon picked up after an hour as colors literally began flying following singing, dancing and a bonfire among a laid-back atmosphere. The second inaugural festival was held by the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence at the Cardinal House.
Helna Patel, a junior and member of International Student Association, was born in India and lived there for 12 years.
“We celebrated Holi lots there,” she said. “The way we’re doing it here is very similar. It’s bringing back lots of memories.”
She joined fellow ISA member senior Geetha Mathew for a medley of Bollywood dances. While wearing traditional Indian dresses, they said that it was difficult to dance in the cold weather because of their bare feet. They had also performed the same dance at the ISA Cultural Fusion Show on Saturday.
As soon as the three girls finished their routine, they ran for their coats, hardly waiting for applause. ISA members and friends gathered under a white tent to get warm, listening to Indian music until the next part of the festival.
Last year was the first festival, and despite the snow and freezing temperatures, Bhavesh Mehta said there were about 200 attendees.
Mehta, a member of the Center’s Board of Trustees, said the festival is a celebration of good over evil that coincides with the onset of spring.
Other attendees included students, members of the Center and several generations of Indians from the Harrisonburg community. Groups socialized while sipping hot drinks together trying to stay warm. They also purchased traditional Indian food, including pakora, batter fried vegetables, and samosas, a pastry stuffed with potatoes and peas.
“We are not just catering to the Indian students, but all students,” said Sushil Mittal, the Center’s Director.
“The ceremony is based on mythical stories and recreates how the fight of good versus evil happened,” Mehta said. “And we continue to pray it will happen again and again.”
Freshman international affairs major Shivani Bhatt shivered in her blue sari at the beginning of the event as she waited to sing the hymn “Mere Prabhu.”
Mittal estimated that 150 attended by the end of the festival. He said they hope to increase attendance by informing the community earlier.
ISA members spoke about non-violence movements throughout the world, and then focused on the significance of the Holi Festival.
Freshman international affairs major Ryan Phibrick read, “On the first day of this two-day festival, bonfires are lit and effigies of Holika [a female demon representing evil to Hindus] are placed in the center to represent the triumph of virtue, truth and religion over evil.
On the second day, people throw colored waters and powders on each other, as all the usual restrictions of color, caste, creed, age and sex are cast aside in the general fun and merrymaking.”
Because of a state ban on fires, the ceremonial bonfire in the yard below Cardinal House could not be lit until 4 p.m. The ceremony included puja, ritual offerings of placing coconuts, popcorn, incense and colors in to the fire, and then circling around it.
Students immediately began throwing colors, the ritual they were all anticipating. Many wore white shirts or older clothing as they opened the bags of powdered non-toxic colors.
Some of the adults were calmer as they spread bright pinks, yellows, and blues on each other’s faces. Everyone had color on them as the celebration slowed down, though some had much more, with faces and hands darkened by the colorful combinations.
“I can’t see,” yelled one student whose eyelids were covered with red powder, as friends ran after her with other colors.
Another girl’s hair perfectly matched her pink coat.
“Was it worth it?” asked one man.
His friend said, “Yes, it just took awhile to get there.”
