March 28, 2014: The second annual UF Holi Festival of Colors is coming to Flavet Field from 11 a.m.to 2 p.m. March 22.

Students Taking Action Against Racism, Student Government, UF Intercultural Engagement, as well as the Indian Student Association, are hosting the event along with several other co-sponsoring organizations.

Holi Fest is an annual festival celebrated on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of Phalguna (early March). It celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking. The entire holiday is associated with a loosening of social restrictions normally associated with caste, sex, status and age. Holi thus bridges social gaps and brings people together: employees and employers, men and women, rich and poor, young and old.

The central ritual of Holi is the throwing and applying of colored water and powders on friends and family, which gives the holiday its common name “Festival of Colors”.

In its first year, UF Holi attracted more than 1,000 students, faculty/staff, and local residents. This year’s festival is anticipated to bring in over 2,000 people this year. The first 500 people to arrive wearing a Holi tattoo from Turlington Plaza will receive a free “I survived Holi” T-shirt, while supplies and quantities last.

h�o [ ��W t Hindu tradition, celebrating the end of winter and the triumph of good over evil. It is common in southern India for friends and neighbors to gather in small groups around a bonfire and throw colored corn starch in the air.

For his Utah version, Das added “kirtan,” which in Sanskrit means “to glorify or spread the name and fame of God’s love,” he says.

Those lyrics can be used in any form, including techno, soul and rock. He set the date at the last weekend in March and invited the entire community to make merry together.

Now, even the priest acknowledges the show he created is more like a rock concert than a religious exercise. After all, it features daylong performances by live bands, plus yoga demonstrations and dance numbers.

Every hour is punctuated with a 10-second countdown and then the tossing of colored corn starch in the air and on audience members. Before long, participants are covered in colors and nearly indistinguishable from one another.

“The throw did not originate in India,” Das says in a video posted on the temple’s website. “Spraying is a metaphor for rejuvenation or renewal, to leave aside the past, to move with a great positive vision into the future.”