Article 3 Final

The South Asian Association (SAA), a campus organization that promotes Indian culture, celebrated a messy Indian festival on Harbor Lawn on March 15 for the second year in a row.

One of the major festivals in India, Holi, is a festive day to rid of past errors and end conflicts. In other words, it’s a day to forget and forgive. It’s also known to be the most vibrant festival of all because of the celebration with color for the start of spring.

Radhika Dang, the founder and president of SAA, says that the Holi Festival is a great way to promote the club because USFSP is a small community and students have limited awareness of Indian culture.

The colors used to celebrate the event is in the form of powder, and the purpose is to throw them to welcome the new colors of spring.

“It’s fun for students to come out and create a mess. I know that the color run is a very popular thing, so I knew that the origin of the color run would be fun if it was held here on campus,” Dang said.

Students who attended the festival didn’t have much information about the culture until they started celebrating it.

“When you’re throwing the colors and doing everything, you’re not thinking about the culture. It’s cool because you’re actually immersing yourself into the culture without knowing it,” Alicia Bargardo, sophomore, said.

The Holi Festival wasn’t originally planned to be scheduled for diversity week because the holiday is on March 6. However since that was during Spring Break, Dang had to make adjustments and held the celebration a week after.

“We didn’t pick to be a part of diversity week. The actual holiday is March 6 and due to it being spring break, we planned it for a week later. It was included in diversity week because we are under the Office of Multicultural Affairs’ umbrella for multicultural clubs,” Dang said.