Holi Festival and Dance Program at Hindu Temple Draws Ever Greater Crowds

Chicago IL: The Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago (HTGC) in Lemont, Ill., celebrated the Holi festival with an afternoon dance program, followed by the traditional and indispensable throwing of colors at each other, and culminated in the burning of Holika as darkness fell. The crowd eventually numbered well over a thousand with even the planned remote parking facility filled to capacity.

The cultural program was emceed by Om Dhingra, Chairman of HTGC Cultural Committee, and dance teacher Vidya Pandikaran, who performed recently at the temple for Shivaratri. A ten-minute animation of Prahlada’s devotion to God against his egoistic demon-father’s will was shown at the beginning. It explained how malicious Holika, after whom the festival is named, drew her devout nephew into the fire on her lap but ended up burnt to ashes instead of him.

Welcoming the audience, HTGC President Tilak Marwaha observed that attendance has been increasing every year with even non-Desi parents bringing their children to enjoy the festive spirit. Quite a few were there at the start of the dance program. He later told Asian Media USA that many came out of curiosity after seeing images of Holi from previous years on Facebook.

Most of the dance numbers were brief and performed by children, sometimes very small. The program opened with Mushan Batla and Simren Mahajan dancing to the song “Holi” on behalf of the Anila Sinha Foundation. The Rangeela Rockers then presented Ila Arun’s “Holiya mein ude re gulal” choreographed by Mukta Maloo and danced by Rajkumar Maloo, Emlyn George, Aniketh Subhash, Frotim Shukla, Devika Soni, and Nisha Hari.

Choreographed by Anita Rotiwar, “Maiya Yashoda” (from the movie Ham Saath Saath Hain) and “Chalka Chalka Re” (Saathiya) was danced by participants aged 5–8: Anushka Rotiwar, Laavanya Kulkarni, Sharvaani Kulkarni, Ria Sawant, Varnika Maram, Shreekruthi Charagonda, Riddhi Bhagwat, Vibha Joshi, and Joshita Suram. Anita Bollywood Dance is located in Buffalo Grove and has been presenting at the Gray’s Lake temple and other localities.

“Radha” was danced by 3–5 year olds Naisha Hamirwasia, Navya Joshi, Sattvik Kolanupaka, Sreya Modi, Jeeya Patel, Nitya Patel, Riya Patel, Riya Tulsiani, and Krishna Valicha. Later on 5–7 year olds Anika Colombe, Dhruvi Jain, Neal Mehrotra, Deeya Patel, Dhruvi Patel, Avya Saxena, Arya Sharma, and Maurya Shivana did “Ramji 24/7” – both were choreographed by Sonia Agarwal. Palak Tripathi and Ayushi Tripathi danced “Ishq Sava” (remix) and “Jiya Re” choreographed by their mom Ruchita Tripathi.

Tarana Dance Academy contributed three items. “Dilhai Chotaa Saa” was by Simar Patel, Diya Seth, Pahel Mehra, Pravlika Gupta, Nikita Jain, Rishika Bothwal, Sonakshi Mutreja, Vanisha Saxena, Esha Majumdar, Ariana Kareena Sen, and Riddhi Kedia. Sanya Jain, Akanksha Kashyap, Arya Shah, Kanika Patel, Atma Patel, Sanika Lingayat, Diya Shah, Nupur Brahmbhatt, Zill Patel, Esha Patel, and Hansika Satyanarayan danced “Nanare.” The third, to the song “Chalka,” was danced by Avantika Pandit, Archita Joshi, Bianca Dharamshi, Annika Srivastava, Maansi Ahuja, Naina Sarup, Nithi Patel, Ria Prasad, Sanchi Pandey, Sanskruti Dungrani, Viddhi Dungrani, Tanisha Dogra, and Tanya Sheth.

Grown-up Anita Rotiwar and Kanchana Kulkarni danced “Mujhe Range De” (from movie Takshak) and “Dhoom Tana” (Om Shanti Om). Sonal Paikh choreographed three dances that followed in succession. Disco Tots featured Alysa Sachdeva, Anusha Parikh, and Divi Saha performing “Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo” (Howra Bridge). Tapori Boys featured Yajat Melwani, Saumil Verma, and Akshat Sigh dancing to “Dink Chika Re Re” (Ready). And the Bolly Radha group featured Disha Parikh, Sanya Verma, and Nysa Sachdeva performing “Radha” (Student of the Year), followed by “Holi Aaye Re” (Mangal Pandey).

Aakash School of Music and Dance, recently founded by Preetha Ganesh, presented two items. 5–7 year olds Pranav Ramdas, Adarsh Rao, and Tanmay Parek danced to “Chammak Challo” sung and fluted by Remo Fernandez. Later, Ganesh herself danced “Aaja Nachle Dur” solo.

Riya Shah, Rinkey Shah, Ananya Sharma, Komal Sapra, Anushka Desai, and Anjini Grover from Nache Mayuri Group performed a medley starting with “Holiya Mein Ude Re Gulal” followed by a Gujarati Garba song and ended with “Ayo Re Maro Dholna.” Finally kids from Radhika’s Dance Group of Naperville performed the song “Go Go Govinda” (Oh My God). Participants were Megha Ramanathan, Sruti Mohan, Rithika Somu, Nishitha Chintalapudi, Mridula Prakash, Nila Krishnan, Yasaswini Iyer, and Madhu Prakash.

Om Dhingra interrupted the program well before its end to specially thank Event Coordinator Rashmi Gandhi for putting everything together. She joined him on stage to enact a humorous dialogue, befitting the occasion, to thank the various people (Bhima Rao, Lakshman Mittur, etc.) and (maintenance, publicity, etc.) committees that had worked hard behind the scenes to make the dance program and Holi festivities such a great success.

With a constant stream of vehicles and scarce parking space, the Lemont police showed up in full force to manage the traffic outside and within the temple grounds. As the merrymaking crowd of Hindu devotees keeps growing larger over the coming years and the host community shows even more interest, it would be worth watching how Holi continues to evolve in Chicago.