Anna Harrington | Societies Editor
Yesterday saw Trinity’s Indian Society hold its third annual Holi festival in Front Square. Over 400 students participated in the event, which was held at 1pm beside the front steps of the Exam Hall. Holi is an Indian spring festival of colours in which participants traditionally throw coloured powder at each other to celebrate the beginning of Spring. As well as the powder-throwing, the event featured the Indian Ambassador, Radhika Lokesh. In addition to Ms. Lokesh’s appearance, Seán Reynolds, Students Union Entertainment Officer, acted as DJ for the event.
This was the first year of Trinity Holi that the profits of the event were given to a charitable organisation, with plans that a new charity will be chosen each year. This year’s charity was SUAS, and the event raised €800 for a school in east Bengal. Sponsorship for Holi was provided by TCD Global Relations.
Raaj Zutshi from the Indian Society said of the event that “as multiculturalism continues to take place in Ireland, [Holi] enables us to share a piece of our culture with the Trinity community through a medium that is appealing to all sorts of students.” The festival was indeed appealing to a wide variety of students, with over 800 students attending on the Facebook event and over 300 tickets sold in the first three hours of ticket sales. Raaj noted that the aim of Holi was “to expose the college community to Indian culture… and this has been a very effective way of doing so!”
The Trinity Indian Society was nominated for Best Small Society, Most Improved Society, and Societies’ Choice Award at this year’s CSC Society of the Year Ball. Other notable college-wide events they have held this year have included Diwali, which took place in Players Theatre and had over 100 students in attendance.
Photography by Sinéad Baker.
