Holi Festival of Colors – Spanish Fork, Utah

By Alan Murray, Uncharted Staff

The sun shone bright in a blue sky as thousands stood in anxious anticipation. Then, for an instant, it was dark as a cloud of dust enveloped the area, blocking the sun's rays. People shouted  as they reached into plastic bags throwing dust at each other.

“I could almost not see the sun when they started doing it, there was so much powder in the air,” said Roseanna Hopper, a college student from Atlanta, Ga. Soon, light pierced through the shadowy cloud, illuminating a rainbow of color.

The vivid dust settled on the thousands of people gathered at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah. Plain faces transformed into blends of purple, pink, blue, red, yellow and green, ushering in the Holi Festival of Color. “That's what Festival of Color is all about. It's a celebration of the Spring time and all the colors that are forthcoming. With one swipe everybody is green and blue and yellow and all those things that make us different are removed,” said event organizer, Charu Das.

Nick Stentzel of Quincy, Ga., came to take photos, his cameras and lenses covered with plastic bags and tape. “Everybody was just in a happy mood and even though there was so many people and a lot of traffic everybody was just really happy,” he said. Cars line Main Street in Spanish Fork up to two miles from the Temple.

People who've learned the hard way show up in the early afternoon to avoid the long lines of traffic and to be sure plenty of bags of colored, scented dust are still available for purchase. In past years, people stood in line for up to two hours for the coveted bags, full of dyed flour, ready to throw in unison into the air, blanketing faces, filling hair, and coloring clothes with vibrant color. The bags are sold for $5 and $10 each. Elle Malan, a college student from Pennsylvania, her face mottled with green, blue and yellow, said, “It was really, really cool. Everyone was doing the same thing. The sky just went pink! It was like being in a big tent. I wish I had bought more bags and come early.”

The day begins with performers, anything from a Nepalese Folk Dance to numbers from the famed Bollywood, India's version of Hollywood. As dancers and singers entertain and the crowd, reaching up to 15,000 fills the hillside, a dark-haired, green-faced figure atop a pile of dry wood stands at its center, ready to be consumed by fire.

The plastic figurine represents the demoness, Holika, of which the Holi Festival of Color has been traditionally linked. Legend tells that Holika could not be destroyed by fire. As she walked into fire to kill a small boy, through divine intervention, she was consumed. Then the crowd is led in a chant, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare,” as colored dust is thrown all over the place. Latecomers, held up by traffic, still find ways to color themselves. Molly Stahler walked through crowds of people, dressed in a painter's suit, asking people to share. “I thought it would be cool to get a white suit and when the dust gets thrown around it would be like a canvas.” People looked at her plain white attire and yelled, 'Hey, you need paint!,' throwing leftover dust onto her makeshift canvas.

Singing and chanting went on for over an hour from the time the first wave of dust was thrown into the air and well into the night as the sun sets behind the temple, it's white walls and elegant domes glistening in the warm spring air.