Holi festival fills downtown Juneau with colors on night snow record is set — and now not a snowflake is on the horizon
- Mark Sabbatini
- 17 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Traditional Hindu gathering celebrating the start of spring and triumph of good over evil occurs with remarkable timing for its fifth year in Alaska’s capital
By Mark Sabbatini
Juneau Independent
Nimmy Phillips says she highlights the cultural rather than religious aspects of the Holi festival she has hosted in Juneau the past five years. Regardless, the colorful Hindu festival celebrating the beginning of spring in India occurred with mystical timing locally this year.
What essentially was a highly colorful block party in downtown Juneau took place as the city was setting an all-time winter snowfall record on Monday night. On Tuesday the sun was shinning bright and the National Weather Service Juneau forecast calls mostly for clear to partly cloudy skies the rest of the week — without mention of a snowflake.
"I‘ve been getting a lot of texts saying thanks for dancing the snow away and bringing spring to us," Phillips said Wednesday.
Holi, also meant to celebrate the triumph of good over evil, traditionally starts on the evening of a full moon during the Hindu calendar month of Phalguna and continues through the following day and night. In India this year that meant Holi started on the night of March 3. Phillips said she schedules Juneau’s annual festivals near the end of the month since weather is typically milder, kids are on spring break and there aren’t other overlapping community activities.
Dozens of people gathered in the street outside Spice Juneau Indian Cuisine, a restaurant Phillips opened in 2021, where a “Bollywood dance flash mob” performed before the street lined with snow and people clad largely in white t-shirts took on a new hue.
Playing a vibrant role in that was Kelly Reed, who brought a whole new meaning to sharing colorful mementos from her recent trip to India. Instead of bringing back rupees or trinkets, she stashed in her luggage a rainbow of powders fit for tossing into a crowd at the celebration after talking to people helping organize the Holi festival.
"I said ‘Can I bring anything back for you?’" she said shortly before the throwing of colors began. "And they said ’Sure — can you bring back some powder?’ So I just bought some of those there. So that's partially why I'm here."
Reed said she first visited India about 15 years ago, but didn’t know a lot about the significance of Holi.
"I just see it as a celebration of the colors of spring," she said.
Phillips brought out a ceremonial platter of powers, which she scattered before a watching crowd to signal the start of a free-for-all where people grabbed cupfuls of powder and began throwing them into the air at anybody/everybody/nobody.
"It’s the most joyous celebration ever," said Bethany Gassan, who said she’s been coming to the festivals since they started in Juneau.
With her were Kristina Totwani, who said her husband Gary is from India, and their son, Reyaan, 8. While tradition calls for wearing white to bring out the full impact of colors until the water-soluble powders are washed away, Kristina Totwani said one lesson experience has taught her is "you have to wear something that you don’t ever want to wear again."
Holi festivals in India typically add water to the mix — literally — with participants tossing water balloons and buckets of water amongst each other, Phillips said. But even a mild Juneau day at the end of March isn’t likely to be remotely comparable to the high of 95 degrees Fahrenheit and low of 66 degrees that New Delhi had on its opening day of Holi this year.
But aside from the water, Juneau’s opening night celebration is quite similar to those in India, said Varsha Chhabria, a server at Spice who’s taken part in the festivals during visits to that country. She said while most take place in bigger cities, they also tend to occur among smaller groups of people within neighborhoods.
"It's more like everybody's building their society," she said.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
