Between music, dances and rain of colors, the municipality of Adeje will host the festival tomorrow Holi, a celebration originating in India spread to various parts of the world. The event will take place in the Avenida de Moscú parking lot at 12:00 p.m. and will end at 6:00 p.m. The celebration of this Festival of Colors is organized by the Hindu Association Tenerife South and ST events, in collaboration with the Adeje City Council. Free and open to the public, this party will include the participation of local DJs, typical Indian food stalls and colored powders to soak the participants in this festivity, which has already become a popular party.
Holi is the second most important celebration in India, after Diwali, and one of the most important in the world. It is celebrated in the Asian country every year to receive spring with the arrival of the full moon, celebrating fertility, love and the triumph of good over evil in which people leave their past behind. This last motif stems from a mythological religious story in which the god Vishnu burned Holika, the incarnation of evil, at a stake so that good would endure on earth. Therefore, for many Hindus it has a religious meaning.
All the Indian towns are filled with colour, music, dance and bright powders of yellow, red, blue and green. Gulal, the name given to colored powders, is made from flowers, trees and pasta, using natural dyes to give them their characteristic shades. However, each of them has a meaning. According to his mythological theories, red represents love and fertility; blue is joy, yellow is the color of turmeric, and green is spring and new beginnings.
particularities
This festival is not known in the same way all over the world. Although the celebration has the same meaning, in the West Bengal states it is called the dol jatra or the dol purnima. Instead, in the city of Anandpur Sahib it bears the name of Hola Mohalla and in Manipur, it is referred to as the Yaosang.
The president of the South Tenerife Hindu Association, Jagdish Fabiani Gopwani, assures that “it is a festivity to celebrate as a family”, because it is the children who are anxiously waiting to play with the water and the colors. “It is a custom that although it is ours, it is open to people of any nationality who want to have fun,” he says.
The reception of the Tenerife society with the Indian community has been “very reciprocal”, in the words of the president of the association, who also assures that its inhabitants “are very hospitable and have respected their customs until they joined them”. In this celebration, Canarian and Indian gastronomy is also mixed, allowing participants to enjoy both cultures in the same place.
In Tenerife, there is a very important population of Indian origin. There are approximately 2,000 nationalized Hindus on the Island, mostly residing in the South, North, and Santa Cruz. Holi arrived in Tenerife more than 20 years ago, with its beginnings in the municipality of Arona later moving to the community of Adejera, where it has been celebrated for approximately 10 years. It is estimated that more than 3,000 people will attend the event, including tourists and the Hindu population that travels from the different islands and even from other cities in Spain.
In Puerto de la Cruz, in April
In the north of the Island, and by the hand of Club India, with its president Sunil Rijhwani at the helm, a festive day is being prepared that will take place on April 16. It will be then when Puerto de la Cruz celebrates Holi. The Festival of Colors this year will also be in the city as “another recognition of the Hindu community of Porto, which has been part of the identity of this municipality for so many years,” stressed the mayor, Marco gonzalez.
It will be in the Plaza de Europa, from 12:00 to 18:00, with a program similar to the one that will take place tomorrow in Costa Adeje and with performances by Club India and Dancing Nomads. Admission is also free.
