See the rainbow. Taste the rainbow. Throw the rainbow?
On Saturday, Redmond was home to the first-ever Festival of Color at the city’s Downtown Park. The sun-kissed afternoon featured live music, a vegetable cuisine and a cloud of cotton-drenching colors.
Event vendors served a multi-cultural crowd with fried pastries, seasoned fries and vegetable fritters as rock music rang free in the park.
At around 1 p.m., family and friends tossed shades of the rainbow — colored powder and water — on each other to celebrate Holi, a springtime festivity in India.
The Vedic Cultural Center, a spiritual center in Sammamish, hosted the event, which drew more than 1,000 people.
“The Festival of Color is a sacred festival that has been held for thousands of years. People pray for each other and celebrate that through a playful toss of color,” said Balarama Lila Das, an educator with Vedic University at the Vedic Cultural Center.
The Festival of Color promoted community-bridging values, which are noted on its website; this festival treats everybody equally — all differences dissolve in the colors that flow in plenty.
Volunteers with the Vedic Cultural Center staffed the Festival of Color to promote a culture of service, according to Lila Das.
“Everybody is smiling,” Lila Das added. “We want to promote selfless service.”
