Group celebrates spring

With temperatures rising, flowers blooming and the rejuvenation of IU's colorful wooded campus, many people welcome the spring season and hope to hang up winter jackets for good. Students in IU's Indian Student Association have another significant reason to celebrate the oncoming of a new season -- the Holi festival. \nIn celebration of Holi, the ISA has organized its annual event at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the IU Auditorium that will feature traditional Indian dances, singing and food. Due to a lack of funding, the ISA is asking paid members to pay $3 and all others $4 to come see the show. This price includes traditional Indian snack food from the Bombay House served after the show.\nTranslated into the 'Festival of Colors', Holi represents the arrival of spring -- a season of joy, hope and spiritual renewal. \n"This is the most colorful Indian festival," said senior Rekha Tadoori, president of the association. "It celebrates the blossoming of the season, and it's a holiday of rejoice."\nSaturday's celebration will feature 30 dancers and three singing performances, each offering a mix of traditional and western-flavored Indian dance and song. \nSenior Nitin Kumar has participated in the Holi celebration all four years he has been at IU. For him, the dances are a good way to blend traditional Indian culture with contemporary U.S. culture.\n"It's always confusing for first generation Americans -- like my parents," Kumar said. "Our celebration provides a great way to fuse the two cultures and expose a whole new group of people to Indian culture."\nThe holiday will continue on Sunday with a traditional celebration of Rang Barse -- the "throwing of colors." It will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. in the field behind the Office of Admissions building.\nFor this free event, participants will throw colored powder at each other while using squirt guns and water balloons. ISA members encourage those attending to wear old clothes, since they will get soaked and stained from the powder.\nAlthough IU has celebrated Holi for more than three decades, Tadoori said attendance has grown in the past four or five years to almost 600 people each year.\n"Our events have been very well attended," Tadoori said. "This definitely shows that more people are interested in Indian culture, and more people are exposing themselves to the different traditions."\nThe ISA has another reason to celebrate the weekend holiday since it will be the first time the organization will hold an event at the IU Auditorium. In the past, most events are held at the Bloomington high schools.\n"This is a big step for us, since it will be right here on campus," Tadoori said. "I think the auditorium will provide an even more enjoyable experience, and it will be really accessible."\nSenior Neelu Rehil, ISA cultural chair, said the events throughout the year wouldn't be as successful without the close bonds from other student organizations.\n"It's so important to form a network on campus with other groups," Rehil said. "This celebration in particular represents the overall mission of the ISA, which is to spread South Asian culture on campus and get more people involved"