Holi on the harbor

There's the kind of winter you watch on the news. There's the kind you scrape off your windshield. And then there's the long grey one we had in East Coast this year, the kind that wouldn't leave until somebody decided enough. This April, the Indian Association of Bayonne decided.

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Holi is one of India's oldest festivals: a celebration of color and the arrival of spring, going back thousands of years. A handful of colored powder thrown into the air to say yes. Today it's a phenomenon, celebrated all over the world — a festival of colors and joy, for the Indian community here and for anyone who wants in. Nobody left clean. Nobody left a stranger.

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If you missed it, the good news is they do this every year. The better news is they don't wait for spring to gather — there'll be a Diwali this fall, and a few things in between. Follow the Indian Association For Bayonne for the next one, and bring something white next holi if you don't mind ruining.

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Pooja Gupta pulled the whole day together — and won't let us thank her without thanking the volunteers who made it what it was: Jatin, Mitali, Nirbhay, Ramya, Priyanka, Ikakiya, Sutapa, Goverdhan, Suresh, Vishal, Ruju, Mihir, Senthil, and everyone who stepped up that day to help in every way.