Holi Krishna

Yesterday I got the opportunity to be a little bit cultured here in my BYU-Provo bubble.

Down south about 20 minutes is the Krishna Hindu Temple. Every year the Hindu celebrate the coming of spring in a festival called Holi, or, The Festival of Colors. In my research on this I read that it sometimes gets very out of hand, but I guess not here in Utah. 

During the festival music is played, and the tradition Holi Krishna song is sung. Here are the lyrics, its actually quite catchy when you are singing it!

Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!

Hare! Hare! Krishna! Krishna!

Hare Rama! Hare Rama!

Rama! Rama! Hare! Hare!

So my friends and I joined in the singing and dancing. We then watched the burning of a witch. No, not a real witch, a fake one. It was to symbolize the burning away of evil in our lives. While the message was good, I never in my life thought I would be caught chanting, "Burn the Witch! Burn the Witch!" with a crowd of people. Well...I was caught. 

After they burnt the witch we threw the colors to welcome spring! The "colors" are powdered chalk. Let me just say, it was a mess, and so much fun! 

p.s. sorry if some of the pics aren't the best. my camera was in a plastic bag for protections!

this is before the color went up,

people just threw powder at each other

bennett&tanner!

kathryn, lindsay, jenkerr, macy, and lauren!

here I was trying to get a picture of my hair.

thanks jen and kathryn for making it SO much more entertaining!

ok now here is when we all finally threw a handful of powdered chalk into the air!

you couldn't see anything!

And now for a few after shots!

(all the group ones were taken on lauren's camera)

And to sum up the day...we got kicked out of Legend's Grill.

As we were walking out Bennett said to us,

"How embarrassing! I told you they wouldn't let our kind in!"

Haha. I love my friends.

Have a happy Sunday! 

And if you ever get a chance to throw colored chalk at people, take it!

also..check out my last year's experience here!

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.