SHANTI holds Holi celebration

By Lauren Harris | 4/29/13 3:00am

Last Saturday, SHANTI (the Hindu Students Organization at Dartmouth) sponsored a Holi event open to the entire campus. Holi is a springtime agricultural festival with Hindu origins that has been celebrated throughout South Asia for centuries. Dartmouth's Holi festivities took place behind the Thayer School of Engineering, and students from all backgrounds simply needed to follow the brightly colored balloons from the Green in order to find the party.

When I arrived, I had no idea what to expect, though I had been warned to wear clothing I didn't care much about. Suddenly, I was doused with an enormous bucketful of water! That's when the fun truly began. My friends and I bolted to grab handfuls of brightly colored pigment, which we subsequently threw at each other's faces (and at some strangers, too). We spent at least half an hour tossing colors, dumping water, and running barefoot on Thayer's lawn.

Dozens of students attended the event sporadically between 2 and 5 p.m. Although the crowd was never too huge, enough people attended that all of the pigment was gone by the time the festivities wound down.


Lauren Harris