A colourful tradition
Holi festival lights up Charlottetown’s Eastlink Centre, drawing hundreds to new event for P.E.I.
Charlottetown’s Eastlink Centre recently came alive with colours, music and dancing as hundreds of people gathered for Holi, often known as the Festival of Colours.
It’s one of the biggest Hindu festivals, and this year it was celebrated on March 24 in Charlottetown, organized by the Hindu Society of P.E.I.
Guests at the event received two packets of coloured powder upon arrival. Passing through a hall, they entered a dimly lit space with party lights and filled with booming music. Crowds of people danced while tossing the colourful powder into the air and onto each other, creating a hazy scene with rainbowcoloured dust floating around.
Nitheen Rao, one of the event organizers, said more than 400 people registered online for the event, with even more showing up on Sunday to purchase tickets in person.
Rao, who moved to P.E.I. from India over a decade ago, said he’s proud to be part of organizing such a large-scale Holi celebration on the Island.
“It's a lot of joy to see people coming together and playing and having a festival together,” he told Saltwire at the event.
‘IT FEELS LIKE HOME’
Holi is celebrated to welcome the start of spring and to celebrate the victory of good over evil. Back home in India, Rao said people would gather in the streets or temples to do fun things like smearing bright colours on friends and family and offering prayers, and on March 24, he saw a similar festive atmosphere at the Eastlink Centre.
“That's what I see here, like, a lot of people are excited and coming together and celebrating Holi. I love to see their excitement,” he said.
Manushree Kaur, a student at Colonel Gray High School, attended the event with her sister and friends.
Kaur came to P.E.I. from India in 2019 and hasn’t been back home since then, so she wanted to bring her friends along to enjoy the event with her own community and also to introduce them to Hindu culture.
“It feels like home,” she said. “It’s been years since we celebrated because you know,
it's hard as immigrants to celebrate these kinds of things when you're outside of your home country. So it's nice to see our community to make this event happen.”
Another attendee, Catherine Dickson, joined the event with her family, including her three-and-a-half-year-old grandson, Luke Mckenna.
Dickson said she learned about Holi from a few people at Luke’s daycare, so she and
“It’s a lot of joy to see people coming together and playing and having a festival together.”
Nitheen Rao
her husband, who live in Summerside, decided to make the trip to Charlottetown on March 24 to join the celebration.
“We just love the cultural diversity. We love music. We love colour. It's just fun to be a part of it,” she said. “P.E.I. is growing in diversity and it’s exciting. And we want to be in the mix of it all.”
FUTURE EVENTS
Rao said the event on March 24 required nearly two months of preparation, including the challenge of finding an indoor venue in P.E.I. capable of accommodating large crowds while still allowing for the tradition of tossing coloured powders.
The Hindu Society of P.E.I., of which Rao is a member, is relatively new as it was started just last year. The society's first big project was the establishment of the first Hindu temple in Cornwall earlier this month.
Rao said since India celebrates numerous festivals, the organization plans to expand and introduce more of these celebrations to P.E.I. for everyone to experience while also showcasing Hindu culture.