In the first ever campus celebration of the Hindu festival Holi, the Gelb Lawn exploded with color as over 50 students threw blue, yellow, purple, green and red powder at each other.
This past weekend, the Hindu Student Union (HSU) held Andover’s Festival of Colors, also known as Holi, a traditional Hindu festival marking the first day of Spring.
To enliven the traditional holiday, HSU staged the event as a cluster competition. Students were divided by cluster and armed with their respective cluster colors. The cluster that succeeded in covering the other participants’ shirts in their own color won.
As soon as Reverend Anne Gardner, Director of Spiritual and Religious Life, cued the start of the event, students quickly scooped up handfuls of powder and flung them at each other. Chaos ensued as students covered each other with various colors from head to toe.
The unexpectedly large turnout emptied the bucketfuls of powder within 15 minutes of the start, according to Emilia Figliomeni, member of HSU.
After the colored fog settled, it was clear that purple, West Quad South’s color, dominated students’ white shirts.
“HSU is not a very widely known club on campus, so I hope we got our name out there with this event,” said Meera Bhan ’14, co-head of HSU. “It’s a fun way to celebrate the Hindu religion, because most of the time religious clubs have difficulties hosting events that are inclusive of people of all backgrounds.”
