Warmer weather and blooming flowers have arrived, announcing the transition from winter to spring. While many cultures celebrate the coming of spring, Hindus have perhaps the most colorful way of doing so.

The changing of the season is celebrated with Holi, the festival of colors. Despite last minute changes in both time and location, more than 100 students came together on Wolf Plaza for the holiday.

Students, Hindu and non-Hindu alike, rubbed colorful powder on each other’s faces, hair and clothes wishing “Happy Holi” to each other while dancing to popular South Asian music. Yellow, green, pink, red, orange and purple powder hung in the air, and colored the people celebrating the holiday.

At one point, the large dancing crowd was lassoed and drawn together into a mass, cheering and dancing. A game of tug-o-war followed, then more dancing. The event was lively and loud despite the chilly weather.

The event was hosted by Ektaa, a South Asian student organization, who sold colored powders and plates of South Asian food at the event.

Hersh Shah, a senior in mechanical engineering and co-president of the organization, said the celebration was really about having fun.

“It’s celebrated more because of what you do, the fun aspect to it, rather than the religious aspect nowadays,” Shah said. “Honestly, there is a religious affiliation with it, but to keep it simple for everyone, it just really the festival of colors.”

Ashutosh Garg, a senior in aerospace engineering and co-president of Ektaa, said people expect to get messy.

“We tell people to not wear anything nice. Wear the same clothes you would wear if you were going to be painting something,” Garg said. “You really can’t plan anything about it. It gets really chaotic.”

Shah added that people who go to Holi celebrations usually wear white.

“It’s preferred that they just wear white because it’s really interesting to see all the different colors you end up with at the end of the day,” Shah said.

Holi is important to South Asian culture, according to Shah.

“It’s a big part of South Asian culture. In most of the Bollywood movies you see, if it’s in the spring time, they always show Holi,” Shah said.

The event was originally scheduled for March 19, but scheduling conflicts pushed the festival back to the 26th, Hersh said.

“We had our other cultural event last Saturday. It was conflicting time as far as we had so much going on. Holi’s actually on the 19th, we had our cultural show on the 19th and it was just too much going on in one weekend, so we just decided to move it to the next weekend,” Shah said.

Tiadra Simpson, a junior in environmental design in architecture, said Holi was a new experience for her.

“I had never heard about Holi before a few days ago. It was a lot of fun learning about another culture and celebrating a new holiday,” Simpson said. “I had a lot of fun throwing powder around and seeing all the colors. I started off with a white shirt, but by the end, it was completely covered.”

Simpson said she plans on attending next year’s festival.

“I’m definitely coming back next year,” Simpson said. “It’s my new favorite holiday.”

Ektaa has been around since the 1970s, according to Hersh. The organization hosts social and service events in order to spreading South Asian culture.

“Ektaa means unity [in Hindi], and our motto is ‘unity within diversity,'” Garg said.