Lois Hole Library gets colourful for Indian celebration

By Aden Cruz

CALLINGWOOD — Paint, glitter, stick on henna body art, bubbles, story telling, and even silly strings filled the Lois Hole library on Saturday.

Sirilak Carter, a library assistant, enthusiastically welcomed all those who came in to take part in the colourful Indian spring festival, Holi.

“[It’s to] expose the diversity of cultures to the users here in the west end neighbourhood,” said Carter.

Shona Bagai participated with her daughter, Jayna, 4.

She said the festival involves a lot of colours to represent the coming of spring.

“It’s a time of coming together and of everything starting again with spring.”

Bagai said the Indian celebration stipulates that people not bring forward animosities towards each other and start anew as they visit and bring each other sweets.

She said in India people throw colors at each other and in the past it started with dry colored powders, but now traditions have evolved and people use all sorts of mediums.

“You could be walking down the street and have someone dump a whole bucket of paint on your head. You’ve got to be prepared,” said Bagai.

She added that now people even use water guns to spray colored liquids at each other and drop water balloons at people from the balconies.

Bagai said the biggest Indian festival is yet to come; Diwali is their festival of lights and is celebrated around the end of the year.

The Lois Hole Branch of Edmonton Public Library hosts Multicultural Saturdays at the Library every third Saturday of the month.

Audra Prinsen and her two daughters, Hannah, 8, and Sadie, 3, joined in on the event.

“They’re really really fun,” said Hannah. “They’re really cool activities…”

Prinsen said they come to the library about once a week, but this is their first time participating in the library’s multicultural Saturday event as they just happened to visit at the time.

“It’s good to learn about different cultures and have the kids see that we’re not the only culture that there is, that other people do different things,” said Prinsen.