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AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Traditions, modern tunes mark Holi fest

The Indian Students’ Association’s Holi Rangeela show Saturday night combined traditional music with modern beats for a crowd of about 1,000.

Students dressed in traditional Indian fine silk garments, celebrated their heritage, exhibiting song and dance routines they had been practicing for weeks. With 120 performers, this year’s show marked the largest involvement the ISA has ever had.

Holi is an Indian holiday that celebrates the coming of spring and the harvest that follows. Co-emcee Raj Parekh, a senior, compared it to the American Thanksgiving.

“Holi celebrates unity and the value of life,” said Parekh, who celebrated his fourth Holi at GW and emceed the ISA’s Diwali event this fall.

The night consisted of 13 acts, performing to traditional Indian music as well as hip-hop and modern tunes. The performances lasted for about seven minutes each.

GW Chamak, the University’s first all-female Indian dance troupe, used all Hindi music, while the all-male group, GW Toophan, split its performance into three parts – one hip-hop and two different styles of Indian dance.

Parekh also said there was strong interest from graduate students this year.

Although most of the performers were of South Asian descent, Parekh said some used non-Indian beats such as “Riddim of the Samosa,” a reggae dance act.

The audience consisted mostly of friends and family members carrying flowers who came to support the ISA and the performers. Despite some modern music, the patrons, some of whom came fully dressed to celebrate Holi, clapped along to every beat.

“As time goes on, you have to move with the times,” said ISA co-Vice President Mandeep Singh Chahil. “We were born here, our parents were born in India; you want to be traditional but you want a little hip-hop, too.”

Women donned lenghas, jeweled gowns of subdued pinks and yellows, and elegant oranges, blues and greens. The clothing’s pigments represented the colors of spring. Men adorned the traditional kurta and dhoti dress.

Junior Arun Janakiraman, president of the ISA, said Holi means something different for every Indian.

The festivities invoked childhood memories for Parekh.

“When I was six or seven, during Holi, people were out in the streets celebrating. You would meet new people … it was a parade-type celebration, a celebration of the value of life,” he said.

Junior Sabi Chawla, who performed in the third act of the night, said the most notable part of the evening was “the fusion between all Indian cultures.”

Janakiraman said the ISA has become a “larger organization with a larger presence on campus” this year, with successful events like Diwali and Holi, and is looking to expand. The group has about 350 members.

Proceeds from the performance went to causes including Ekal Vidyalya, a nonprofit movement to provide education and primary health care to villages in India.

The ISA will continue its Holi celebration on the University Quad on April 19. Parkeh said after a barbecue of hamburgers and veggie burgers, students will put on white T-shirts and begin throwing colored “powdery substance(s)” at each other to celebrate the importance of color in Holi.
-Julie Gordon contributed to this report.

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