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Festival of Colors

This festival of colors, Holi, is being celebrated all over India since ancient times.  And celebration for devotees means another chance to offer a service to Radha Krishna. Thus at Radha Gopinath temple we play this festival with dry natural colors and colored water by smearing them at our Radha Krishna Deities.

At Radha Gopinath temple and all ISKCON temples this festival is celebrated on the next day of Gaur Poornima (appearance day of Lord Chaitanya). In the morning preparations start, and by evening everyone is eagerly waiting for entry of little decorated deities with colorful clothes and flower jewelry. Finally, deities arrive with a Kirtan party and everyone bows down to welcome them. They are placed on the alter and dozens of plates filled with natural colors are placed in front of them.

Devotees begin the celebrations when they come ahead and start smearing colors from a distance with the help of a brush.  Every stroke of colors that falls on them is accompanied by a loud Hari Bol of all the devotees. One by one the guests come ahead and smear the Lords with different colors. The Kirtan starts intensifying and reaches another level, and when fragrant colored water buckets arrive with water cannons,  Kirtan becomes thunderous. Once again devotees pick up water cannons and soak deities. It’s a heavenly pleasure to watch deities’ enjoying colors. It appears as if they are melting in different colors one after another.

It is believed that tradition of playing with colors on this day draws its roots from the pastime of Radha and Krishna. Once young and dark complexioned Krishna who was jealous of Radha’s  fair complexion questioned his mother Yashoda on the darkness of his complexion. Yashoda, teasingly asked him to color Radha’s face in colors of his choice. In a mischievous mood, Krishna applied color on Radha’s face. We can’t imitate this mood but devotees also participate in this loving exchange of applying colors and express love for each other.