Shubhra Mishra ’25 M.S. ’25, former co-president of the Stanford chapter of Asha for Education, described Holi — the Hindu festival of colors, love and spring, celebrated by throwing colored powders and water at each other — plainly: “Everyone’s covered in color, you can’t really tell who’s who… For one day, we put aside all differences and just come together to play with lots of color, dance and eat.”

Hosted every spring by Asha, an organization promoting the education of underprivileged children in India, Stanford Holi is a celebration that raises around $100,000 over six sessions in the two-day-long event annually, according to Mishra. The money raised is donated to educational nonprofits in India, supporting 100 children for an entire year.

“Once you convert $1,000 to rupees, it’s enough to support a child’s health care, food, education and housing, for a whole year,” Mishra said.

Having served as the co-president of Asha and organizing Holi, among other South Asian festivals, for two years, Mishra described “knowing Stanford inside out.” Because of Holi, she has coordinated with security, staffed emergency medical technicians (EMTs), provided porta potties and hand-wash stations, invited food vendors and more.

The team is “creative with how we keep things cheap,” Mishra said. For example, as an alternative to hiring a graphic designer to film videos, she learned to edit videos and create Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns herself. With a $650 market budget, Asha ended up making a profit of 15,000 to 20,000 more from ticket sales, she said.

“She definitely was the backbone of Asha when she was helping organize it for the two years that she was co-president. I saw firsthand how many hours a week she was putting into it and all the different logistical requirements that come with organizing such a big event. There’s really nothing that operates at that same scale,” Poonam Sahoo ’25, who met Mishra in Asha her sophomore year, told The Daily.

Planning for Holi is rewarding, Mishra said, as it “puts yourself out of your comfort zone and makes you do things you haven’t done.”

For Mishra, celebrating Holi at Stanford is a “full-circle moment” because she was born and raised in the city of Pune in India for 11 years before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio.

“A lot of who I am is shaped by my time in India,” she said.

Celebrating Holi in India is “something that kids really enjoy because you get to make a mess and no one’s gonna know you, which is what kids love to do,” Mishra said. “Adults also get pretty lit at the festival — it’s something that’s made for everyone.”

As an only child, Mishra recalled being introverted growing up. It wasn’t until high school when she was encouraged by teachers around her to bring out her more extroverted side.

Mishra noted her advisor for her high school’s quiz bowl team, Mr. Meeron, was particularly important in shaping her leadership abilities. As the team captain, she often consulted in Meeron for her team lineups. “He would never even look at the paper. [He would say], ‘I have full faith in you, I know you’ve made a good lineup, you know the players well, I totally trust you,’” Mishra said.

To Mishra, little moments like these went a long way in shaping her into a more confident person, as well as appreciating the role of teachers and education, she said. 

Members of Asha have noted Mishra’s dedication.

Sukrut Oak ’25 M.S. ’26, who served as co-president of Asha with Mishra, described the emails Mishra sends to Asha’s mailing list. “Instead of writing simple meeting reminders, she writes these really funny and kind of convoluted story lines that surprisingly actually got more people to pull up to our club meetings,” Oak wrote to The Daily. “We’d get responses back — even from strangers on the mailing list — that the emails made their day.”

“That probably sums up what Shubhra is like. She’s unconventional and radiant and manages to casually add so much joy to the lives of the people around her including mine,” Oak wrote.

For Anjana Balachandar ’26, Mishra was someone she “gravitated toward,” Balachandar said. “As a freshman and trying to find community, [Mishra] was someone who just exuded positive energy, incredibly welcoming, very intentional about getting people involved who are new to Asha,” she said.

“I feel very grateful to have had her as a president the first two years that I was involved because it really made me fall in love with the organization too,” Balachandar said. Balachandar is now the current co-president of Asha, along with Akash Shah ’26.

Mishra studied computer science at Stanford and conducted research at the intersection of “getting language models to reason,” from writing code to computing math, she said. After graduating, Mishra intends to begin her Ph.D. in computer science in Sweden this fall.