A dance floor where it rained colour, a colourful lineup of stage shows and thousands of revellers with every colour of the rainbow on their faces. Salt Lake Sanskritik Sansad held arguably the biggest Holi bash in the township and BF Park played host.
The largest zone in the arena was the rain dance, in front of the stage. Not only did coloured water shower from the top here but DJ Imran also belted out Holi hits that had the audience dancing like there’s no tomorrow.
Revellers had come to the venue armed with water canons, water balloons, colours et al. Selfie zones were set up around colourful umbrellas and photo booths but then most people preferred not to get their phones into such a wet and wild event. Those who did, had secured their mobiles inside plastic bags.
Never too young
The event drew revellers from all over town. Kartavya Choudhary, 17, had come with his parents from Ganesh Talkies. “We were speechless when we first saw the venue,” said Hansika Panda and Raj Verma, who had come from around City Centre. “We’ll never forget this bash.”
A gang of friends from Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan had come with an enviable arsenal. “We shall make this our best Holi yet,” they said, and took it upon themselves to carpet-bomb the park with water balloons. But no one seemed to mind.
There was also a lady playing with a baby in her arms. “My son’s a year-and-a-half. It’s quite difficult to play while shielding him from the colours, but it is worth it,” she said. There was also a lady in a wheelchair who played and watched. And kids had to themselves a huge inflated pool and bouncy castle.
Stage events included percussions played by the Krishna Dhol band and folk and Bollywood dances by Ashraf’s performing arts studio. The anchor was Abhilasha Shukla.
Special guests included MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, minister and MLA Sujit Bose and councillor Sabyasachi Dutta.
Managing the crowd were 20 bouncers and 40 volunteers of the sansad. “We are using about 35,000 litres of water for this gala event and all the colour used are organic,” said secretary, Amit Poddar. “We have been holding such events for the last 40 years, although we have really scaled up over the past six or seven years.”