The event took place in the heavily…
By Jennifer Warren
It is a celebration marked by mess. And Sunday 11,000 Hindus flocked to Richmond Hill from throughout the New York City area to partake in the jubilant confusion known as Phagwah, the springtime festival of colors.
The event took place in the heavily Indo-Guyanese community, where thousands of Hindu immigrants whose ancestry stretches back to India have settled in recent years after leaving the South American nation.
“This is our tradition,” said Chris Naraine of upper Westchester, his 3-year-old daughter Reshma balanced on his shoulders.
Surrounding Naraine, revelers’ clothes were caked with white powder and smeared with crimson liquid dye. Usually a beaming smile completed the costume. Naraine, however, was conspicuously free from the festival’s residue.
“I stay away from it. I’m an asthma sufferer,” he said. For the past 10 years, however, Naraine has been driving an hour and half from his Westchester home to join thousands of others watching the floats of the Phagwah parade and the frolicking crowds make their way down Liberty Avenue.
En route to Smokey Park, where the parade ended, clouds of bleached talcum powder, liquid streams of garnet and indigo dye, and red paint arched through the air before landing on unsuspecting victims.
Walking up and down the parade route, where threatening canisters of dye and powder lay in wait, one newspaper photographer confessed, “I wore my rain coat — just in case.”
Sandra Nugent, a 24-year-old expatriate from Ireland who now lives in Astoria, said she did not make it to Sunnyside’s St. Patrick’s Day parade last weekend. But she attended Phagwah because, “I like making a mess,” she said, her blond hair and red blouse caked with powder.
“I haven’t a clue what it is all about. I’m just with this lot,” she said, pointing to her friends who were similarly doused and disheveled.
The carnival, complete with the clanging of cymbals and song, is not unlike the Catholic celebration of Mardi Gras or the Jewish community’s Purim, which also occur at this time of year. And as with those holidays Phagwah, too, has a story.
In ancient times Prince Prahlad refused to heed his father, King Hiranyakashyapu, who demanded that the prince worship only him as god.
The young prince instead worshiped Vishnu, the supreme god, and as the boy grew he gathered a following who, like him, followed the teachings of Vishnu.
In an effort to thwart his son’s influence, the king, with the help of his sister, Holika, decided to kill the prince.
Holika was immune to fire. So at the king’s request, Holika was told to take the prince in her lap and sit in a pyre of flames. She did, but when the flames extinguished, it was Holika who had burned and the boy remained.
In remembrance of the tale, Hindus toss powder on one another in a purging ritual to symbolize the ashes from Holika’s fire. The abeer, or red dye, symbolizes Holika’s blood.
But the dousing of one another with the colorful pigments, said Bisram Rajkumar, education coordinator of the America Sevashram Sangha Temple in Jamaica, is also a show of unity and diversity.
“Color knows no barriers. Whether it’s green, red, white, it symbolizes unity,” Rajkumar said. “We’re living in a world of materialism. We clamor for wealth and more wealth. It is essential that we break down this barrier and think about the question of love, of peace, of ultimate happiness.”
To instill this message, the ashram is building a six-story state-of- the-art school for kindergarten through 12th grade opposite its house of worship on 90th Avenue.
The school, like the Phagwah holiday, will also exemplify unity, Rajkumar said.
“It’s non-sectarian. Its doors are open to the Hispanic community, the African-American community, the American and Hindu communities. It knows no barriers.”
The school is also no doubt an effort to teach and retain the next generation of Hindus who, like many new Americans, face the threat of assimilation.
The annual Phagwah parade reflects threat. In Guyana and India the celebration of the holiday generally remained within the confines of the ashram or the mandirs — community temples, said Rajkumar.
“In India we didn’t have a parade. There was no need to have a parade. But here it is necessary because we want to show our presence in the United States.”
Reach reporter Jennifer Warren by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 155.
