#63 - Hara Krishna!

Yesterday, my two best friends and I made our way south to warmer weather for the Hindu Festival of Colors! The festival represents the coming of spring from winter and the triumph of good over evil. We first attended a performance by the BYU Indonesian Percussion Orchestra, which mostly just consisted of loud, boring bell tingy songs. We were sitting in the very front row so it was pretty loud (somehow Brent managed to still sleep through it). Oh but wait... all of a sudden, they circled up and started making odd train noises; chanting and behaving very strangely. I was a little frightened - thinking they might attack me when immediately my suspicions were fulfilled. They started jumping around like monkeys, making screeching noises and one guy came right up to my face. I burst out laughing (which, I'm not sure how "culturally appropriate" that is or if it was even supposed to be funny), but I positively could not control myself. Tears started streaming down my face while I tried to hold in my laughter. Brent finally had to hold me into his chest to try and control me but as soon as I controlled my breathing, I could hear (and feel) Brent and Sami both laughing which just got me going again. It was out of control - it was ridiculously funny. Then! in the middle of the animal/train chanting and swaying, two of the girls started singing "If you could hie to Kolob". Oh.. man... that put me over the edge. Too funny for words - we were all speechless and tried not to be too much of a distraction. To sum up: it was awesome and totally worth the five bucks.

This one (above) is from this year. If you look closely you can see us in the middle of the middle for the concert. Just kidding, it's impossible. BUT WE ARE THERE!!

This one (below) is from last year, but I just liked how beautiful the color throwing was.

After that we headed down to the field for the "throwing of the colors". Some punk kid evidently light off the effigy before it was time (signaling the commencement of the color throwing) so there was preemptive throwing. We made our way toward the middle (per my request) and after a speech, explaining the purpose of the festival, the actual throwing began. For about a minute you couldn't see or breath (awesome!) and were bombarded with colored chalk from every direction. The Hindu rock concert started and thankfully, we all knew the words (Hara Krishna, Hara Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hara Hara, Hara Rama, Hara Rama, Rama Rama, Hara Hara... repeat). They put those words to just about every tune, from reggae to nursery rhymes, "Jack and Jill when up the hill to fetch a pail of Hara Krishna, Hara Krishna...." and "A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-R-I-S-H-N-A Hara Krishna, Krishna Krishna..."

After the concert, we headed back home to Rexburg while we were serenaded by Brent, putting those lyrics to the playlists on my iPod. Surprisingly they fit well to just about every tune. It was incredibly fun and well worth the drive.

HARA KRISHNA!!!