Spanish Fork... Mumbai... you decide

I'm not going to be the first and most certainly not the last to create a facebook album specifically dedicated to this weekends Festival Of Colors in Spanish Fork. I'm anticipating by Monday afternoon that I'll recieve a notice on my homepage that at least 15 of my friends have been tagged in someones album or have changed their profile picture to something involving the festival of colors. I'm going to be no exception.

The picture below was taken while waiting for the festival to begin. I couldn't help myself while sitting on the lawn in an 'ever-so-in-touch-with-my-inner-hindu-criss-cross-applesauce fashion' from poking my little finger into a plastic baggy of chalk and get my face prepped for the excitement (notice the pink stripe going under the eyes and across the nose, grr baby).



Here is a brief explanation of the festival:

A bunch of BYU students in EFY t-shirts and jeans mingling with one another about how "fetching awesome" the event is. Sprinkled in are a few token actual hindus and a smattering of dreadlocked barefootees keeping themselves far more composed. When time came to begin throwing the color a prominent member of the local Hindu community stepped on stage to explain the historical and religious influence of the ceremony while no one even made a semblance of an attempt to be polite and listen to the background story. The colors soon began to fly with such intensity that within seconds all involved were speckled head to toe with vivid blues, violets, pinks, oranges, greens, yellows, and reds. Random strangers would throw handfulls directly into the face of anyother, to which the reciever would smile widely and exlaim "Hey thanks!" This ensued for nearly 15 minutes while a Rock Band played fast paced music and chanted the Hare Krishna chant over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Soon a mosh pit had developed and sometimes 5 to 6 people at a time would be crowd surfing atop the chalk caked audience. This level of excitement lasted for well over an hour as more and more students poured into the venue, anxious to get in on all the action. Most people had a walk to the temple upwards of 20 minutes. Cars lined country roads in all directions for about two miles.

All in all, it was gernerally exciting and actually quite a blast. Here are some of the photos to prove it.