By Anushka Parekh, OD Advisor - Human Resources
I’m Anushka and I’m an OD Advisor and I’m also a member of the Health & Wellbeing, EmbRace and the Women’s EDI networks.
Holi is a Hindu festival that celebrates spring, love, and new life, and was celebrated on 25th March.
I remember when I was much younger and during university, my fondest memory of Holi would be changing into white clothes, watching hundreds of people to gather together to dance and throw colour on each other, even water balloons, I was always so fascinated by this and asked myself why do we do this?
Holi marks the arrival of spring and end of winter. There are many mythological stories associated with Holi. One of them is based on a female demon ‘Holika’ who tried to burn her nephew because he worshiped another god. Miraculously, her nephew survives the burning flames as Holika is consumed by the flames. Bonfires are now lit the evening before Holi with the belief that good can triumph evil to celebrate spring, love and new life.
Hindu’s from around the world celebrate in different ways through dancing, feasting with different Indian savoury snacks, and the most fun throwing colour.
I can’t say that I celebrate it exactly like this, but over the course of the years a typical day would look like this.
A typical day
I would say my family don’t usually follow the religious traditions, but would use Holi as an excuse to have fun and get extremely messy. I couldn’t wait to throw powder paint and coloured water on my brother. The more colour on you, the better!
This year I was performing a Bollywood dance at a local event in Manchester. I feel this is my way of expressing myself and connecting with others in the community. It was a day full of snacks, life and colour and it was amazing to see so many people from the same community in one place and celebrate the onset of Spring. It’s a great time to welcome some light and hope into our lives.
