Holi the Indian festival of color, known as Holi is celebrated this Friday, March 18th. A local woman Akruti Barbaria has created a way for people to learn more about the celebration through her small business Kulture Khazana.
Mel asked if it was a little like Thanksgiving and Akruti says yes and a lot more. She says the Thanksgiving aspect of Holi is that’s when the winter crops are harvested for the Spring season; it’s the arrival of Spring and the religious significance of Holi is that good wins over evil and the celebratory aspect of Holi is, think of it as color plate all across the town, city streets all over the country in India and Nepal.
This has been a way to bring some of her own childhood traditions and pass them down to her child and says to bring it in a way that a global child will connect to it. She goes on to say my childhood and what the world looked like when I was a kid was very different compared to children growing up now; they are the iPad, iPhone generation, so things have to be that much more stimulating. Akruti says they need to appeal to them in a sensory way, so it was a way for me to bring cultural stories not just to my child but families like mine and other families who want to experience culture but in a way kids absorb it through play and it diversifies their play a little
Akruti says the whole purpose of Kulture Khazana is to connect families with cultural stories. The way we do it is through puzzles, toys, books. She says I create online content and I create a lot of celebration kits for holidays like Holi, and other holidays which are celebrated by millions of people around the world, actually probably billions of people around the world but we don’t find them in mainstream or we don’t find them in big box retail stores so it was a way for me to bring them to people who want to experience them, where people live a very busy life and they don’t have time to create these resources, they don’t have time to put together these resources.
For more information go to Kulturekhazana.com
