Indian spring festival takes over Sculpture Fields
After you’ve been immersed in Sculpture Field and the massive festivities and sculpture burn that we discussed last week, you’ll surely be ready for your next trip to the sizably impressive new ode to three-dimensional artwork.
Holi, The Festival of Colors, should by now be a shoo-in for your Saturday calendar. Holi is a Hindu day of celebration that is becoming increasingly popular in the United States.
Photographers capturing the elated smiles on pigment-stained faces have given the festivities an aura of joyous community-wide jubilee. It is a competition crusher for photogenic aesthetic. However, the festival is enjoyed most thoroughly through the lens of our very own eyes. A real-life experience offers meaning and memory far beyond the capabilities of any photograph.
While the history of the Holi festival has a long and interesting origin concerning kings who mistook themselves for gods and actual gods who corrected these unfortunate opinions, the special celebration is meant to be a time of glorifying the triumph of good over evil and a welcome to the impending spring season. It is an annual cleansing of sorts, a spring cleaning of the soul, the body, and the mind.
Sush Shantha and Sujata Singh are the event’s organizers. Sush is a leading proponent of diversifying Chattanooga and sharing her Indian heritage with the city. She is effectively a bridge between Chattanooga and India.
Sush teaches Indian cuisine cooking classes at various charity events for worthwhile causes around the city. Though she is known to occasionally teach a private cooking class, too, the list is long and hard to even get on. Sujata, also from India, is co-chair of the event.
In addition to being an avid entrepreneur and propagator for diversity at home, Sush and her husband are partners of a hospital chain in Bangalore, India. Sush mixes her love of cuisine with her master’s degree in public health and spends three months a year in Bangalore running and staffing the hospital’s kitchen and keeping her ties to her home country alive and well.
“I love to share my cuisine with people,” she says. She talks about the spice of Indian cuisine and how people misunderstand its purpose and intensity. “It’s a spice of flavor, not a spice of heat,” she goes on, obviously dreaming of her beloved gastronomy. If pressed, I think she could discuss the subtlety of balancing dishes and spices for hours.
Join the opalescent day of fun presented by V Love Events on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Sculpture Fields. Desi Brothers, Chattanooga’s favorite India grocery store, will provide food and drink. DJ Eric of Warsaw International will play Bollywood-themed dancing music as a traditional Indian dhol drummer wanders and plays.
“We are excited to have Chattanooga experience the joy and color of Holi,” say the event’s organizers. “Families will share a wonderful day of games, vegetarian Indian cuisine, and cultural activities, as well as the great fun of the color exchange. Guests may purchase pouches of vibrant color to share by tossing the colors on family members and friends. Once the colors are flying back and forth, water can be splashed on so the colors run together on faces, arms, and shirts.”
The throwing of color will make any photographer’s dream come true. Truly, Holi is an excellent way to experience a new culture, let loose, meet some new friends, and take a little step out of our all-too-restricting comfort zones.
“We gather and have food and music and have fun. Don’t wear good clothes,” laughs Sush.
You can learn more about the event by searching “Desi Chattanoogan” on Facebook. Come hungry, come dressed to get messy, and bring your cameras!