Festival of Colors

HARE KRISHNA!!! What does Hare Krishna mean you ask? I have no idea. But for those of you who went to the Festival of Colors yesterday you most likely went crazy dancing to a monk singing it for three hours.

The Festival of Colors happens once a year and is some kind of Hindu spring celebration. But if you ask any of the 10,000 college students who attended why they were there, they will not mention anything about Hindu, spring, or religion. There is only one reason why the Festival of Colors is so popular and that is chalk. Yes chalk, but not just any chalk, I’m talking about colorful, throw in your face get everywhere chalk, and lots of it.

Basically the entire purpose of the festival is to buy this colorful chalk and throw it at people while you dance and go crazy to repetitively awesome Hindu music. This continues for quite a while and just when you begin to think that there is no way for you to get any dirtier, it happens, the cloud. The cloud is the pinnacle of the festival. The head monk leads all 10,000 people in a countdown from 20 and when he reaches 0 everyone throws their chalk in the air at the same time. Think that sounds like a dirty idea? You have no idea. Last year the cloud was seen 10 miles away. For those lucky enough to be in the cloud the exact opposite happens, visibility shrinks to about 10 inches as you are choked and colorfied in the crazy color cloud. It is awesome.

You leave the festival energized, full of hare krishna spirit, sneezing purple, and with colorful chalk all over. Do I recommend the Festival of Colors? Yes. I promise that you will never have so much fun while getting so dirty.