Holi colours!

Festivals are not only an integral part of Indian culture but also at TARA. We love parties at TARA, and the celebration of festivals gives us the perfect chance to get together with all the homes. More importantly, it is the best way to inculcate the idea of secularism and religious tolerance among the kids, we believe it is essential for them to have the right values and inculcate them so as to be good human beings; they are the future of our society after all.

Lodhi Garden

HOLI is probably the one festival that our children wait all year long for and could you blame them? A day filled with colors and laughter, it does not get better than this. This year, the children had a dual celebration which was kick started at the Lodhi Gardens on the 19th of March, thanks to our generous sponsors. We had the Boys and the Girls, alongside the staff, volunteers and our guests. It was five hours of nonstop fun with everyone being pulled into the mud. No one could escape the kids, it's almost like they planned out an entire strategy to make sure all the adults were smeared with mud at least once. Having said that, it seemed like our staff also did a little bit of plotting of their own. One could almost think of it like a contest, where our favorite champions (based on the votes from the children) definitely had to be Syed and Basanti, with Hasina giving good competition as well (there’s always the next year for the rest of us). There has to be a special mention for our Big Birds who also joined in on the fun and made sure the children had all the support they needed in terms of attacking the staff. Never the less, it was a lovely celebration which was concluded by a sumptuous lunch which consisted of a variety of assortments from sushi rolls to crepes and rasgullas. On the actual day of Holi, which was the 20th of March, we had the privilege of being invited to the French Embassy courtesy the Ambassador, His Excellency Mr. Alexandre Ziegler.

The French Embassy

The Ambassador was kind enough to host the entire TARA family, which included the three homes, all of the staff and guests. It was a perfect afternoon and the children couldn't have asked for a better party, there were plenty of colors to go around, almost as much as the candy and other sweet treats and savories (colors and candy make a deadly combination). The children also had a special surprise in the form of a magic show followed by a DJ who blasted popular Holi tracks for the kids to dance to. It was literally a riot of colors, water guns and balloons. Anybody witnessing the entire event wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the staff and the children, that’s perhaps the beauty of Holi wherein everyone’s inner child comes out. Another landmark in this year’s celebration (according to TARA Boy Shyamu) was the fact that everyone’s beloved Pascal Sir made an appearance at a Holi celebration, since the first time which was when TARA has just started. The children had a blast trying to get color on Pascal (he is 6ft tall after all) and towards the end of the party, it would be safe to say that he had enough color on him to make up for the lost years.

All in all, Holi, 19 was an absolute success (BIG shout out to all of our generous sponsors and the team at TARA) and we can't wait to see what the next year has in store for us!