so today was the krishna festival of colors, which celebrates the arrival of spring. basically this is how it goes down: thousands of BYU students flock to the krishna temple in spanish fork to basically re-create woodstock (minus the pot and gratuitous sex) in the form of huge crowds throwing bags of brightly colored powdered chalk at each other.
the effect of thousands of people shouting "hare hare krishna!" together, happily throwing colors into the air, and basically just frolicking around a hindu temple is rather intoxicating. and then the countdown begins, and at the end everyone simultaneously throws the colors into the air to create an incomprehensibly huge cloud of colored dust--so thick that it blocks out the sun, almost as if an atom bomb of color has suddenly gone off. you're caught between the desire to take in everything that's happening and the biological need to breath, which is suddenly put in danger by the lack of air.
the result--you're covered in a variety of colors, literally from head to toe. i had chalk in my hair, my eyes, my ears, my mouth, down my shirt, on my jeans, under my fingernails, inside my shoes, and in various other places for which i'm putting into place a "even if you ask, i won't tell" policy. my shower looked like i had murdered several cartoon characters. also, i had to shampoo my hair twice to get the powder (and the smell) out.
before the color cloud.
waiting for the countdown.
the aftermath.
today was a good day. definitely one for the books. and the blog.
