A Vibrant Holi Celebration in Aspen Park

It only took a few minutes for Aspen Park to be engulfed in a vibrant cloud of colorful powder. On Sunday, June 14, Scarsdale High School students gathered at the park to celebrate Holi, the Hindu spring festival, or festival of colors, by throwing pink, blue, purple, red, orange, and yellow powder in the air and on each other. The festival is primarily observed in India, Nepal, and other places with a Hindu population, but recently has spread throughout the rest of the world to celebrate love and the coming of spring (this year, because of date changes due to some bad weather, the festival was more of a celebration of summer than spring.) The crowd was not large, and the vibe was intimate, yet the many small individual bursts of powdered color all globbed together into a mass of deep, dramatic chromaticity.

Organized by Scarsdale High School seniors Srishti Bose and Michaela Burger, the festival was a great and relaxed way for seniors to hang out with friends and celebrate the start of the famed and presumably great, "Summer Before College." "Holi was a lot of fun, and it was a great way to see lots of people from school before I graduate!" expressed senior Kara Schechtman. School-organized end-of-year events for seniors like Prom, Graduation, or Senior Transition Day can have a lot of surrounding pressure, but since this event did not have a goal of "student bonding," it just happened more naturally. "I was looking forward to Holi for a long time because I did it last year and had a lot of fun. It's such a great way to bond with classmates and do something out of the ordinary – throw powder at each other!" shared senior Caroline Kristof.

It was great to see everyone out together on the field, where participants chased their friends and threatened them with blobs of green or lounged on the hill admiring their stained bodies. There are few places where the goal is to get as dirty as you can -- but at Aspen Park on that warm summer day, a colorful mess was the only way to go.

Text: Isabel Klein
Photos: Isra Ameen