Holi

This past weekend I went to the Festival of Colors, which is held at the Hindu Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah. It is in part to celebrate the coming of spring, but it also reaches back into their religion. I am unsure of the whole story and meaning, but from what I understand Prahlada (I still can’t figure out who this guy was, I even Wikipedia-ed him) was carried into a fire by a deamoness. The deamoness died, but Prahlada survived. Bonfires are usually lit the day before this festival in commemoration of this. The deamoness’s name was Holika, so that is where they get the name of the festival: Holi. 

The color part of the festival comes from Lord Kirshna, who had apparently complained to his mother about his dark skin complexion compared with Radha’s fair complexion. Radha and Kirshna were childhood friends and lovers. Because of his complaint, Kirshna’s mother applied color to Radha’s face. Hence the color throwing.

I think it may get a little excessive here in at the Utah Hindu temple, but I guess they love us Mormons invading because they made two events this years to accommodate everyone.

I went to the later one, and it apparently had more people. Check it out:

This is me and some friends before (and notice the cloud of color in the background…BEFORE everyone threw up colors).

Yeah, still before…

My genius friend Jonathon brought doctor’s masks. Trust me. They were needed when the colors went up.

Then the countdown began for everyone to throw their colors in their air

10...9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…

1!

This is what I saw after the 1…or should I say what I didn’t see. I couldn’t even see the people standing right next to me! It was so crazy! I felt completely alone, but there were hundreds of people around me.

A few seconds though, and I started to see again. Notice the guy in this <---- picture. I have no idea who that is. And then more random people here ---->.

Color it up.