Hare Krishna and the Festival of Colours

We attended the Hare Krishna Festival of Colors today. It was amazing! Everyone, at least once in their life needs to attend such a festival. The temple itself is beautiful.

Here's Joey and me under a part of the temple.

We went with our good friends, the Fillmores. There were about 15,000 people there! We gathered on the temple and on the hillside. Indian dancers performed while we waited for the main attraction to begin.

Here's Milan and Rachel Fillmore.

As we waited for the main event to begin, we watched the traditional Indian dancers on stage… their dances are so beautiful… but so long! They really are graceful.

The Hare Krishna Temple filled with people.

The story goes that King Hiranyakashipu commanded everyone to worship him instead of the gods. His small son, Prahlad, refused to do so and became a devoted worshipper of Vishnu, the Hindu God. Holika, Prahlad’s sister, immune to burning in fire, in order to save the child, picked him up and carried him into the flames. Prahlad chanted the names of God and was saved from the fire. Holika perished because she did not know that her powers only worked if she entered the fire alone. Anyway, the practice is to throw flowers in celebration of this event.

The fire that initiated the event.

A fire was lit at the festival a little early and people started to throw the colored flour they’d purchased. A cloud of bright green, yellow, purple, pink and blue burst into the air around us… you couldn’t see anything. Breathing was even difficult.

The cloud of colored smoke.

The event coordinator came on the microphone and ask everyone to stop until the band was ready to begin playing music. He also said that once the throwing began, our differences would disappear and we’d all be friends. As soon as they were, the countdown began, the music started and, once again, colored flower burst into the air above the crowded hillside field. At first, the flour throwing was among our little group, but soon, we gained friends and helped to color all those around us. We quickly became covered head to toe in colors… as if we had been painted. The fire continued to burn and the music continued to play. We patted people on the back, leaving hand prints and our faces were smeared with colors. The flour was scented with jasmine and now permeates our home.

Joey and me after the flour throwing.

When things started to calm down, we were able to move closer to the stage. The band that was playing was awesome… check our video footage. The crowd was going wild (sometimes they became irreverent). Everyone was clapping, jumping and chanting along to the song:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krisha Krisha Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Hare Hare Rama Rama

The crowd was seriously going wild. So many people were body surfing… we tried getting closer to the stage… we didn’t want to get too close... we were wary of the shoes that people were stealing off the feet of the crowd surfers and throwing everywhere… hitting lucky persons in the head… seriously, a number of times we saw individuals get nailed in the face. The shoe throwing became a game as people tried to throw the shoes on the roof of the pavilion housing the band.

The roof covered in shoes... this is after the guy climbed up and knocked them off.

One man tried to climb up on the roof to get the shoes off… he hardly succeeded in that as soon as he got them all off, more were thrown on. On his way down, he signaled to the crowd to come closer together and he threw himself off the roof! He was caught and continued through the crowd.

It was such a celebration! One kid climbed on the shoulders of his friends and did a back flip off into the crowd! They were crazy! I don’t know what happened to him, but that could not have been pleasant for those underneath him. Some other guys were being stupid and stripped down to their briefs and danced around… so that’s what it’s like outside of Provo!

You've got to watch this video... the guy was singing nursery rhymes and then going into chanting.

Once we got tired of the music and crowd, we walked around and visited their petting zoo… they had a macaw and llamas and peacocks! It was so fun! By this point, I think we were all tired and the flour was imbedded in our lungs and brains. And we were ready for a shower.

It was a great experience and I am so glad we got have it before we leave. And I’m so glad we got to share it with Rachel and Milan.