The Festival of Colors

Without really saying my job is stressful (because I don't want to be one of those people who blabs indiscreetly about his/her job and coworkers), I think I have conveyed that point. Recently, it has become evident that I need to spend less time working, thinking about work, and/or talking about work. So, when Lisa invited me to take part in the Hare Krishna Temple's Holi Festival of Colors, I said yes. It has become an annual event for her, as well as for many, many other Utah County residents. It was a first for me.

For those of you who don't live in Utah County, I will try to explain this as best I can:

About 15-20 minutes south of Provo, there is a Hare Krishna temple. I have spent some time on Wikipedia, and feel that I can, with a marginal amount of clarity, explain what Hare Krishna is:

• It is a religious organization whose core beliefs are based on traditional Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavad-gita.
• It is a monotheistic religion that aims to bring people to the Supreme God, who is Krishna.
• Its members can often be seen spreading Krishna-consciousness in public areas.
• The festival of Holi symbolizes both the exorcism of the demoness Holika and the love of Krishna and Radha. It is celebrated by the throwing of colors and the burning of the witch.

From these three bullet points, it shares some commonalities with my religio (except for the Bhagavad-gita). I will freely admit that I did not know even this small amount about Hare Krishna prior to attending the Festival of Colors. I will also freely admit that I am confident I was not alone.

So, this is what the festival meant to me, and, in my estimation, 98% of the other people there:

• You get to stand in a field in front of the Hare Krishna Temple and throw handfuls of colored powder at one another while chanting "Hare Krishna," over and over again. Hare, by the by, refers to the "energy of God."

The festival took place all day yesterday. They were expecting something like 15,000 people at this event. I realize that the official capacity of Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin is over 100,000, but we are talking about a pretty small, fairly rural town in Utah. Consequently, we had to park a couple of miles away, and walk to the temple. We never found all of the people we were supposed to be going with.

Our first task once we got inside the temple grounds was to buy the colored powder. The powder, which seemed to be something along the lines of rose-scented cornstarch, was sold in individual bags, bags of three, or bags of six. Entrance into the grounds is free, so the temple makes money from selling the colors. There was no discount for buying bags of three or six. The powder stands were under a pavillion, which was so crowded I never actually saw a line, or the people selling the powder until we managed to press our way to the front.

Once we had our colors, we made our way out to the lawn in front of the temple where probably a couple thousand people were gathered, already throwing colors at one another, despite the fact that there is a designated throwing time and you are sort of discouraged from just throwing colors haphazardly at people.

Meanwhile, a band was playing. They had sort of a Christian rock feel to them, but, after examining their website, I'm not sure they would claim Christianity or any other denomination beyond a general spirituality. Following their set, it was announced that, prior to the 3 p.m. throwing, they would "burn the witch."

I am not making this up. The burning of the witch seems to be important to the festival of Holi, but I cannot get over the bizarreness of standing on a hill with thousands of white people in the throes of some sort of Indian Woodstock chanting "Burn the witch!" "Burn the witch!" Images of Monty Python and The Crucible filled my head.

On the heels of the witch-burning, they had the countdown, and, for a good ten seconds, the air was filled with colored powder.

And that was pretty much it.

I have included some of the dos and don'ts of this activity, which, I think, gives a pretty good snapshot of what this day was like:

Dos

• Going up to strangers and asking, "May I loving[ly] decorate your face & recolor your hair?"-This one became extremely important to me. I have personal space issues in my regular life, and they extended to this festival, so I did not appreciate random strangers on the street (well before I got to the temple, mind you) throwing colored powder on my face or slapping my back with their powdered hands.
• Letting down body surfers gently on their feet. There was an ambulance at the event, which fired up as we were leaving, presumably because someone had failed to heed this rule.

Don'ts

• Throwing colors close, hard, & directly into eyes and mouth.
• Climbing anything except stairs (means roofs, scaffolding, poles, fences, brass elephants, stage).
• Taking off shoes of body surfers & throwing on pavilion roof. (they'll not be taken down til end of the day).
• Vending illegally on the property (undermines temple's ability to improve property & events).
• Throwing colors on the musicians & their equipment.
• Throwing colors on or around the temple building & verandah (it's a color safe zone for those who'd rather observe).

It always worries me when I read a list of rules like this one because it is absolute proof that someone has done these things, and that it doesn't take much for a group of upstanding college/high school students to disintegrate into a group of crazy anarchists.

Here's a shot of Anne, who never broke a single rule during the event, and also kept her sunglasses on during the whole thing, so as to avoid having someone throw powder in her eyes.

At some point in the day, it occurred to me that I am a professional in the community, and it might not be in my best interest to run into one of my students or clients at this event.

I was banking on the fact that they wouldn't recognize me.

What do you think?

*I apologize that these pictures do not do a very good job of depicting things as they actually happened. I have a new phone which is fancy and expensive, and I did not pull it out of its protective bag until after we were safely away from where the colors were being thrown.