Students welcomed the new spring season with colors and music during the Indian festival Holi on March 5 on the intramural field behind the HPER Center.
Festival guests tried Indian traditional food, threw colored powder at each other and listened to the dhol, a traditional Indian double-headed drum.
Conway’s Indian community cooked some traditional Indian food such as gulab jamun, a milk- solids -based dessert; soan papdi, a flaky textured sweet; veg biryani, rice with spices and vegetables and pav bhaji, a fast food with a spicy vegetable mixture that goes on buttered bread.
India is an agricultural country, so it is important for Indians to celebrate Holi, which is associated with fertility, rebirth, rain and sunlight.
During the Holi festival, people dress up in white and throw colored powder on each other.
In the morning they pray and then have food and drinks.
Graduate student Armstrong Hang Yang, graduate student, said it was his first time going to the Holi festival. While he likes spicy food, he said the Indian food was too spicy for him.
“I think it is interesting [and the colored power]makes you look very funny,” he said. “But it is an Indian tradition.”
Assistant kinesiology and physical education professor Adam Bruenger said it was his first time coming to such an event.
He said he loved the Indian food and that the festival was “entertaining and enlightening.”
This year marked the fourth time UCA has hosted the event, which UCA’s Indian Student Association started.
