Huge crowd celebrates the seventh annual Holi Festival

To say it was a colorful afternoon is an understatement.

On Saturday, March 11, thousands of people gathered at the Birmingham Museum of Art from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to celebrate the Seventh Annual Holi Festival. Holi is a Hindu festival that signifies the arrival of spring. It's also know as the "festival of colors." Today, it is celebrated by all kinds of people around the world. 

The day at the museum included free admission and a variety of celebratory activities and food. Over the course of the afternoon, the Indian Cultural Society as well as other groups and duos dressed up in traditional Indian clothing and performed classical Indian and Bollywood dancing routines in the auditorium. Children and families participated in art activities and henna, as well as listening to storytelling in the Southeast Asian Galleries. At the cafe, the Taj India Tasting with Indian Sweets took place. People also stood in line for the food trucks.

Then, as the rain finally eased up for an hour, hundreds headed outside to throw handfuls of powdered colors in the air — and mainly, at each other, strangers and friends alike. Some people wore plastic coverings to not get the paint on their clothes, while others wore stark white t-shirts ready to be blasted with color.

Spirits were high as the festival came to a close and everyone left the temporarily paint-stained sidewalks to head home for the day.