The holiday Holi was a couple of weeks ago but this weekend at University of California, Berkeley the Indian Student Association put on a festival for Holi. Many people have heard of these festivals of color where people by colored powder and in a giant mosh pit of people everyone throws color at each other.
A giant throng of people gathers and takes part in this festival each year; this is my second year taking part and it really is an amazing thing to experience. You can find last year’s story of Holi here
At times there are so many people crammed into one space it is hard to breathe, impossible to see if you are as short as me, and in the mist of color filling the air there are shouts of joy and surprise as color explodes across people’s hair, face and bodies in a huge spray of vibrant color.
A big group of my friends all came to the festival and we all stuck together in the massive crowd, dancing, screaming and throwing color at each other. It really is an experience everyone should have at some point in their life at least once.
Our faces were covered in a huge array of colors, it felt like every part of me had been dyed a different color.
After the war of color is over, everyone looks so different with a mask of colors changing the features of faces that are so familiar yet entirely altered.
I can’t wait for the years to come where we can celebrate again and again the vibrancy of our lives and the world.
.