Biraj Mein Holi Khele Nand Lala
(Holi at Iskon Temple, Utah)

I never dreamt that I would be able to leave Maryland. When the move was imminent I tried to hide my fears under the guise of bravado. ‘I would soon be back’ and ‘this is only a short intermission from the mini India that I knew for so many years’, I kept telling myself. Much tears were shed the day I landed here at Salt Lake City looking at the bald mountains and dusty roads. No lush green trees, no hurried driving. No midnight musicals, no bhajans for Jagannath. No Orissi dances and no social gatherings like in Maryland/DC/Virginia. For a while Utah pushed me away with an equal force of strangeness.

Our visits to Salt Lake and linking it to Chilika of my home, to Yellow Stone Park and relating it to Simlipal forests, to Bryce Canyon and connecting it to the temple city of Bhubaneswar made me yearn for more similarities, to strike an alliance with the Rockies.

I visited the Hindu temple, the Tabernacle and the Gurdwara to search for my familiar Gods and hear my favorite bhajans. All these houses of worship overwhelmed me with the presence of the Supreme. But my search for that familiar face continued. During our explorations of the city, we chanced upon the Spanish Fork Iskon temple. On my third visit there, I found the trinity sitting on one side of the temple right next to Srila Prabhupada's throne. My days of hunting were over. Thereafter something attracted us to the striking temple every other month. We were there for the India Fest, for Diwali, for Shiv Ratri and this past Saturday for Holi.

This time during his visit to the US, I took my father around the national parks. He was most happy to see the huge geysers, lakes, temples and the whimsical limestone mountains. There was one comment he made that made me think. He said, “the Rockies need to metamorphose into pilgrimage spots if they have to become the Kailash Parvat. Otherwise they will be just mountains”.

I think this past Saturday, the Rockies made that transformation. With the backdrop of a marble white temple, rolling valleys under the mountains, 15,000 people gathered at the Spanish Fork Iskon temple to play Holi. They waited patiently for a cue after Holika was burnt to death and with the count of 1,2,3…the crowd threw up the sky a strange hue of colors that might just have reached Krishna’s face! With the traffic jammed up for 2 miles or more, young people continued to pour in just as they must have 3000 years before Christ to play with dry abhir (colored powder). The valley was tightly packed when the band began playing Hare Rama Hare Krishna on the stage and while the rhythms of dancing and swaying rippled through the 15,000 strong euphoric crowd, the sun shone bright and warm. The man behind this mega event, the temple president Caru Das, smiled at every face. I knew he had just metamorphosed Spanish Fork into Braj Bhoomi.

For hundreds of beautiful pictures, blogs, slide shows and videos visit:
http://utahkrishnas.com/

One beautiful video from Daily Herald:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8EUDMRvRaE

Some fantastic pictures:
http://falln-stock.deviantart.com/gallery/

Here are some from my own camera: