On the 22nd of March, Monash celebrated the festival of Holi relishing pieces of music and festive food. Organised by MUISS, the event brought joy and happiness amongst Monash students in the middle of Week 3.

“This event is something that we’ve wanted to conduct since last year, but unfortunately didn’t get to the last time around”, said Charlotte and Samiul, the main people involved in the board who made this event possible. They also added that their team has been actively planning this festivity since the early of February. “We started brainstorming ideas for this event and outlining how the event would go down to make the best out of this long-awaited celebration”.

As scheduled, the registration for the bash started at 5 pm. Slowly, the crowd began accumulating to a good figure of 120 registrants in total. Entrants were warmly welcomed with freshly cooked samosas together with ‘dhall’ and lassi, a drink made of yoghurt. Not to forget the piece of confectionary that sparked joy and happiness-the LOLlies!

The very first performance of the day was a dance performance which was gracefully choreographed and performed by a group of 7. About an hour later,  ‘Gulal’ a.k.a colourful powders were distributed, the main essence of any Holi festival. Catchy Bollywood songs were also played in the background to hype up the crowd. Once everyone was equipped with the Holi powders, the much-anticipated countdown started.3,2,1…and everyone threw a handful of their powder up to mark the beginning of the Holi Festival 2019!

In a matter of a few minutes, the open field which was initially somewhat lusciously green in colour turned into a beautiful mess consisting of scatters of vibrant colours. ‘Happy Holi” wishes were said out loud to everyone whilst catapult-launching powders towards them.

Soon enough, the event took a turn as the ground turned into a water gun fight. Everyone armed themselves and started blasting water in every direction possible! Everyone got drenched with water and covered with powders. Somewhere around 7pm, the field was open to the public, which meant more people and subsequently more fun!

The night ended with dance-savvy people dancing to the beat of the music with full energy. Top Bollywood hits-‘Chammak Chello’, ‘Kala Chasma’,’Nakhra Tera Ni’, you name it!- served as a ‘rush of adrenaline’ to the members of the floor. People regardless of differences got fully engaged in the hype and the blast of songs. Those who were unfamiliar with Bollywood songs and dance moves were also not left out in any way.

The event was put to an end with a thank-you-note from the organisers and obviously, the “traditional group picture” of the MUIS committee members. All in all, everyone enjoyed themselves thoroughly. With a free flow of food and uplifting fuel for the ears, there was definitely nothing to complain about. The only lament, in my opinion, is the aftermath of Holi that’s to recover our original skin colour and hopefully get the colourings off the clothes! And just in case you’ve not figured it out yet, university life is not always gloomy as evidently, it can get colourful at times too.

Text by Irshika Suthakar

Photos by Fatyn Afiqah and Nick Khoo