While the festival, which involves guests throwing colored powder on each other in celebration of spring before dancing around a bonfire, has steadily gained in popularity, something changed in the zeitgeist this year. Without warning, attendance skyrocketed from 4,000 last year to 10,000. Organizers simply could not have predicted the sudden popularity and in retrospect were not entirely prepared...

Of the huge crowd, few came with any notion of the spiritual importance of the event, which many simply viewed as a party -- and their attitude showed. College students spread litter far and wide across the temple site, violated rules about removing shoes before entering the sanctuary, and stood on and even temporarily removed two huge golden elephant statues flanking the temple entrance from their pedestals, treating a sacred space like a carnival or worse.

"I was somewhat crestfallen by the sheer amount of debris," Das said, noting it took volunteers a week and a half to clean up.

But perhaps worst of all to Das, of those who came knowing little about the religion or the Holi ritual, approximately none were more educated when they left. That is because Das' 10-minute prepared speech to explain the event, calm the crowd and educate them on the sanctity of the experience they were embarking on never happened. With so many people crowded in and waiting to throw colored powders, temple staff were not able to communicate with Das and lit the bonfire early -- the signal that begins the powder throwing.

And the band, a crucial part of the ritual chanting of prayers, was not able to set up -- one member, so frustrated because he could not get through the crowd to the stage with his equipment, actually left and went home.

# Posted by Aniruddha at 13/4/08; 4:41:03 PM to the News dept.
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A BINGLE between Shane Warne's Mercedes and a Melbourne tram has been caught on camera by a Hare Krishna filming his three-month-old baby.

# Posted by Aniruddha at 13/4/08; 4:26:48 PM to the News dept.
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# Posted by Timothy Mcleod at 13/4/08; 1:08:25 PM to the Daily Class dept.
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