THUNDER BAY - The air was awash with clouds of pink, purple, yellow, blue, and green as thousands of people celebrated diversity and unity while casting aside negative feelings and thoughts.
The Festival of Colours returned to Marina Park on Sunday, with thousands of people throwing out colourful clouds of powder, while also enjoying music, dancing, and food.
“It is excellent,” said festival organizer, Prashant Jani. “We have more than 3,000 people at this time and we are expecting more than 6,000 coming for the festival.”
“We have a lot of young students and teenagers enjoying the music and dancing and the colour throw,” Jani continued. “We have an excellent response from all age groups. It’s all ages there. Even young kids.”
The Festival of Colours, or Holi, originated in ancient India and is meant to celebrate positive thoughts while throwing aside bad feelings and worries.
For performer, Malini Taneja, who led the crowd in a countdown before one of several colour throws, said the colours represent all the positive things we want in our lives, while throwing away the negativity. But they also represent so much more.
“It also represents all the backgrounds we come from,” she said. “We are all colourful people. When everyone is wearing those colours, it’s hard to identify where we come from and it shows that we are a family together.”
Abbie Hauth, Alyssa Ryan, and Theo Sancartier were at their first Festival of Colours and there was definitely a freeing feeling when throwing those colours into the air.
“It was awesome,” Sancartier said. “I just love that it’s so cultural and so involved. At that moment, you just don’t care.”
“Everyone can just dance together,” Ryan added. “And it’s just a bunch of people you don’t know.”
The Festival of Colours was originally held in conjunction with the Festival of India, but this year organizers separated the two events to allow more people to enjoy both festivals.
Jani said it has been a success and he was really pleased to see so many students come out to enjoy the festival and he hopes it strengthens the message of celebrating unity and diversity.
“We all have different types of language and come from different countries, but ultimately we are all spirit,” he said. “The message here is love and we want to share the love of culture, the love of heritage, the love music, the love of dance, the love of food. Everything is here to share with everyone.”
