An estimated 10,000 Indian-Americans from all over the Bay Area congregated Saturday at Cardoza Park in Milpitas to celebrate the start of spring with the Festival of Colors, Holi.
The free festival, organized by the Federation of Indo-Americans of Northern California and Fremont Hindu Temple to celebrate Holi, drew in families, devotees and community members throwing colorful powders on one another to the thumping beat of live music.
Saturday’s “Dhuleti,” which was held from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., included families and friends covering their clothes and skin with vibrant colors, drinking and eating traditional fare, and dancing to music produced with a desi drum, “dhol” and a disc jockey.
The festival, which has traditionally been held at Hindu temples in the area, was held for the first time in a park, as organizers expect to see attendance to continue to grow.
“Usually we do it in the temple and it was just getting overcrowded. We thought we should move it to an open area and … we want to open it up to a lot of other communities to start participating … we want to share some our traditional culture with everybody else around in the community,” said Dr. Romesh Japra, president of the Federation of Indo-Americans.
He said next year he would like to call the event “Festival of Globe,” and invite other ethnic communities to join.
Japra said attendees really got into the swing of the event, dancing to fast-paced Bollywood music as color were thrown by children, elders and adults.
“There was a lot of food, music, dancing and colors,” Japra said.
Japra said the story of Holi is one of goodness triumphing over evil, and that the festival is a celebration of love, truth, faith and being a good person.
“There was a king who was a bad character, he wanted everyone to believe he is God and there is no other out there, but his son turned out the other way, religious and spiritual and believing in God and not his father,” Japra said. “The emperor’s sister had this gift when she got into fire she will not get burned. He ordered her to take the son into the fire and she got burned and the son got saved, so that is the mystic story and the truth can always survive anything and goodness and good virtues like the son come out as the winner.”
He said that is why the color of fire and other bright hues are thrown in celebration on Holi.
Divya Chugh, a San Jose resident shared on the event Facebook event page, “That was the best Holi experience ever in (the) U.S. Thank you so much for organizing all the fun food and colors. Yes, we have been to Stanford too so many times, but nothing beats today’s Holi and the best part was the awesome song collection by the DJ. Loved it.”