By Cara Leahy, Student Reporter
Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors, was celebrated at ACU Saturday by more than forty students. The event included Indian cuisine, henna tattoos and color-throwing.
“We wanted to do this for a lot of the students from India who celebrate this back home,” said Chris Windsor, Resident Director for Smith Adams.
The Festival of Colors, intended to celebrate the arrival of spring, traditionally takes place in March on the night of the full moon.
One traditional part of the festival is color-throwing, which represents joy and peace during the spring season. Saturday’s event honored this tradition as its beginning activity.
“It was cool to throw paint at people,” said Molly Mulholland, junior social work major from Fort Worth.
=The color-throwing holds deeper meaning for those who know the history behind the Holi Festival, said Hima Bhatt, a nursing major from Gujarat, India.
The story, according to Vaishnava theology, tells the tale of Hiranyakashipu and his son Prahlada. Hiranyakashipu had the desire to be worshiped as a god and it clashed with his son Prahlada’s devotion to the god Vishnu. Prahlada survived his father’s attempts to kill him, but a time came when Hiranyakashipu commanded his son to sit on his sister Holika’s lap in the midst of a fire.
Holika had a shawl that protected her from fire, and she gave this shawl to Prahlada, thus sacrificing herself so he would survive the flames. The Holi celebration comes from her name, and highlights this story with the burning of bonfires during the festival.
Although there was not a bonfire at the ACU celebration, attendees had the opportunity to enjoy a large water balloon fight, Indian-inspired dishes and henna tattoos.
A long line of girls wanting tattoos formed only a half-hour after the event began. Some of them brought pictures of designs they wanted, and most opted for tattoos on their hands and feet. A picture album nearby gave everyone a chance to see photos from India.
Though the festival didn’t include all the activities India’s own Holi festival consists of, it provided an opportunity for students to catch a glimpse of Indian culture.
“I came because I thought it was really cool to do an international celebration for spring,” Mulholland said.
