Holi Celebrations at University of Washington
Posted by seattle on March 23, 2009
Holi - the Indian festival of colors. The sheer name of this festival brings into mind a splash of colurs. So, when Hindu YUVA, UW decided to organize Holi celebrations for the first time, it had to be special. A flood of colors that Seattle’s grey skies has never experienced. An addition to the American red, blue and white. An event full of enthusiasm, joy, wonderful colors and some delicious food. Can you expect anything more? Oh yes you can. The event was organized at the Golden Gardens beach in Seattle. We decided to hold our weekly gathering - shakha at the beach too. We played some traditional Indian games like kabaddi and kho-kho. Playing these games on the beach sand made them all the more fun. We decided to light up some real holi fire near the beach. The lighting up of the holi fire turned out to be a good idea given the cold seattle weather.
Then it was the time for the real Holi fun. The colors came out. The traditional gulal in many colors - red, purple, yellow, green, blue and pink colors certainly made everyone look alike and unrecognizable. After that it was time to take the advantage of the beach and make the holi real India style. It was time to go crazy. People started going into the beach water, splashing the not so tasty beach water on each other and applying some more colors. Pretty soon they were dragging and throwing friends in the water. brrr… The holi fire certainly helped get some heat and encouraged people to go into the water again and create some more mayhem. There was much song and dancing around the holi fire. The usual holi hits like Rang barse, holi ke din got the feet of the people moving.
Soon everyone was hungry and tired. So, it was time for some delicious food without which no desi party is complete. The variety of food brought and the parts of the India that the food represented is worth mention. There was some delhi ki chana chat, Mumbai ki pav bhaji, Chennai ka sambar and mouth watering sweets like kaju katli and halwa. Overeating is an obvious phenomenom on such occasions and soon it was difficult for everyone to stay awake. So, it was time to say happy holi and goodbye for everyone. We hope you will join us for next year’s celebrations and shout with us ‘Happy Holi !!!’ 