Festival of Colors

In the rural area of Spanish Fork, Utah, planted right in between muddy fields of cows and corn, is the Hindu Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple.

Yes, random.


But really cool!  Several monks from the temple came to the Day of Hunger on BYU campus last year.  They taught us a mantra/chant/song and we basically did the conga with them!  Fun!

Every year, thousands of people {mostly BYU students} travel out to their temple to celebrate the festival of colors, or "Holi".  It is so popular, that they do a "throwing" every two hours.  Think New Years countdown style.

Holi has been celebrated by Hindus since the 7th century.  There seems to be a lot of significance.

• The celebration of the coming of spring.
• Throwing powder and water {traditionally made with healing herbs} to keep sickness away that was believed to be at it's peak during the spring.
• Celebrating stories of their deity.

That's about all I know about the traditional Holi.  The modern one–at least the on in Utah–is basically just an excuse to throw colors at people.  When Roy and I started walking up the hill toward the temple, random strangers began throwing colors at us.  No waiting for the countdown.  People would just shout, "Clean people!!!!" and then we'd be bombarded.  I thought it was kind of fun.  Roy... well he got hit in the fact a few times.

By the time we got to the top of the hill I looked like this.  Just from random people throwing colors at us.

 But by the end I looked like this!

';l,';l,';l,';,';l,'

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,'

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,'

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,'

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,'

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,'

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,

';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,';l,

';l,';l,';l,';l';l,

';l,';l,';l,

';l,;'l,

';l

 

Why did we go?  Because we won't be living in Utah for much longer.  We figured we better have the experience now.  This picture below isn't even a picture of a throwing.  It's just people dancing and crowd surfing to a Hindu band singing "Hare hare krishna" over and over again.  I know Krishna is the central figure of Hinduism, but I have no idea what "hare" means.  They said/sang it a lot.

Roy and I only stayed for an hour.  We met up with Leah and Jamie and some of their friends for a little while.  And I was surprised at how many people I saw that I knew.  I even saw friends I haven't seen for years!  Everyone of all faiths comes together for this!

Oh and guess what?  I still have pink in my hair.  It has been over a week and I can't seem to wash it out.  The green, yellow, blue, everything else came out.  But my hair has been dyed pink.