Yale Hindi Program Celebrates Holi

Holi is a holiday that’s hard to forget—or to wash out. The Hindu festival is traditionally celebrated by “playing colors”: smearing colored powders in vibrant teal, fuchsia, emerald, and rouge across on celebrants faces and clothes. Festivities also include lighting bonfires and unleashing water guns to transform streets into temporary rainbows. The holiday commemorates different events in different regions and traditions. These include the incineration of the demoness Holika by the piety of her nephew Prahlad; the love of the divine couple Radha and Krishna; and the arrival of spring. This year, Holi fell on Wednesday, March 8. The South Asian Studies Council was pleased to join in the festivities by supporting the Yale Hindi program’s Holi celebration, which began by playing colors, followed by singing by Hindi program students and members of Avaaaz, Yale’s first South Asian a cappella group, and wrapped up with a meal of pav bhaji, papdi chaat, and rasmalai.