The story behind the Holi festival is that there once was a witch named Holika who had a cloak that made her invincible to fire. She would take babies, and carry them into fire, and they would be incinerated but she would live. One day she took a boy named Prahlad (I think) to burn him. He was a holy child, and had a habit of chanting God's names always. In Hindu belief, God lives in an absolute world, meaning that God's name is God. When you say water, you don't stop being thirsty, but the the name of God is Him. So God was with him, and caused that a wind should blow, and right as Holika stepped into the fire, the wind blew the cloak off of her back directly onto Prahlad, and she was burned. The holy child lived.At the Holi festival, they burn an effigy of a witch, symbolizing the burning of Holika. She was realistic, and green.
They also sing a prayer of the names of God like Prahlad did."Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama,
Rama Rama, Hare Hare."
Anyway, I don't really think the symbolism is what brings out thousands of BYU students. Someone made a facebook event for the Holi festival, and about 10,500 people said they would go, which means a lot more actually would go. It was going to be huge! So they split the festival into two parts, and we decided to go to the 12:00 session.We drove down to Spanish Fork pretty early to get parking, listening to Bollywood music, and learning the dance in the car. The people driving in front of us thought we were crazy, especially when our driver accidentally turned on the windshield wipers when attempting a pinwheel sitting down. We got okay parking. We wandered around in their temple, which was very beautiful. Upstairs people were singing the prayer and dancing. Yeremy, a friend that came with us wished our Sacrament meeting were as lively. :) We bought some colored chalk for later. We petted some llamas, and saw white peacocks. We even bought some Indian food, which was pretty good. We played games, and sat in the sun (I got sunburned a little) listening to a rock-ish band sing the prayer, and watched some traditional Indian dances. Just waiting for the main event to begin.
College students can be dumb and impatient. We weren't supposed to throw chalk until 1, but really, some people were done at 12:30. We waited.Then they started the count down, started the bonfire under the effigy, and we all threw chalk in the air, thousands of people at the same time. It was awesome. We decided to stand on the edge of the crowd because in the center you can't see or breathe. We were with a girl who has asthma, so it was a good idea. All we could see was a cloud of chalk rising into the sky, with the white dome of the temple poking out the top. After the original fist full into the sky, we began plastering each other, avoiding eyes and ears. I told Erilyn I was smearing love on her face. It was green.
Within a couple of minutes we were all very multicolored, and I was mostly the orange of an ompa-loompa, thanks to Yeremy. Oh, and my shirt was originally white, if you can't tell.
All and all, it was an awesome experience. We turned her car multicolored, and I had to wash my hair twice, but it was totally worth it. I'm going back next year. Wanna come?
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