We’ve recently had my new favorite holiday of the Nepali calendar (I haven’t seen them all yet, but I can’t see very many topping this one!). Diwali began last Friday and ends tomorrow (Monday). According to Swetha, Diwali – also known as Tihar – is celebrated for many reasons, depending on who you are and where you’re from. In Nepal, it’s typically a celebration of the goddess Laxmi (the goddess of wealth) and the festival is known as the festival of lights. When all the lights are turned on, the towns resemble diamonds – a tribute to Laxmi.
Diwali consists of crazy colored lights all around town, general decorations, Nepali sweets stands in the market, lots of food and raksi, traveling minstrels and firecrackers. Essentially, it’s Christmas, Halloween, and the 4th of July all rolled into one! Unlike Dashain, which is celebrated mainly in the home, this festival is clearly public and a sense of festivity has been in the air for days. Women buy new clothes, the marketplaces are packed – not today though, EVERYTHING was closed! – and even the stray dogs are given puja (blessings) and tika-ed with red marks on their foreheads and collars made of flowers. The dog puja is not the only thing – apparently cows and dogs both have a day when they are honored with puja and tikas. I guess I missed the cow day…
During the holiday, Swetha came with me to Banepa where we celebrated with my host family. On Friday the celebration was less pronounced, but we were given foods that are typically only seen on holidays – su-ra (flat, dry rice), achar (nasty pickled stuff that’s very popular here), and some kind of fried Nepali sweet/donut thing.
On Saturday, the festivities began when we went shopping for new clothes. Like some of our holidays at home, new clothes are purchased during Diwali. Honestly though, we just wanted to go shopping! One of my maamaas (my host mother’s brothers) has a large kurta shop that has gorgeous materials of all kinds. We decided to go there. In hind sight, that was either a really good decision or a really bad one – both Swetha and I ended up with quite a few new fabrics! I did get a few warmer fabrics for winter though, so it was both a fun and practical shopping trip. Those who know me will be shocked to hear that my new winter kurta is pink and purple (seriously mom – they’ll match the running shoes you were so scared I’d hate!).
After our successful shopping trip, we went to see “The Largest Shiva Statue in the World”. On the way to Banepa, there’s a HUGE statue of lord Shiva on the top of a hill that you can’t miss. It’s incredible. It looks like it’s made out of copper, but according to my host brothers, it’s just painted copper-colored. Swetha tells me that not only is the size impressive (146 feet!), but Shiva is rarely seen or worshipped in his human form. The short story is that he ticked off a few other gods who decided that from then on he would only be worshipped in symbolic form. Despite the fact the statue was built as a tourist trap by a spa, it was pretty incredible and the view from the top of the hill was beautiful.
Saturday night it was time for raksi and fireworks. I was a bit nervous that with the raksi in our system we’d burst into flame around firecrackers, but fortunately we weren’t seeped in raksi! The reason behind this fear was that during the Dashain holiday, my dai (older brother) demonstrated the serious alcohol content of raksi by having me dip my finger in the raksi and then have it lit on fire. My finger went up in flames for a few seconds! Needless to say, raksi and firecrackers didn’t seem like the smartest combination. All was well and Swetha, Amardeep (my oldest dai), Amardeep’s precious 6 month-old son Subhaum, and Sudip’s (youngest dai) 8 year old son Sagaon set out to play with firecrackers. It was a lot of fun to set off rockets from the roof, jump over the spinning firecrackers, and play with sparklers. Don’t worry though – Subhaum was kept far away from the action!
Sunday, we headed back to Kathmandu (me to retrieve my luggage which has FINALLY, after 2 months exactly, arrived in Nepal). It was amazing to see everything closed in Nepal – even Bhat Bhateni (Nepal’s answer to Walmart and Macy’s) which is never closed, was closed today! When we finally arrived in Kathmandu – it took 2 hours due to a HUGE traffic jam – we figured that the majority of the excitement was over. We were wrong. Over the course of the day, at least 4 groups of singers or people with instruments came to our door. These included kids, teenagers, and adults. The most impressive group showed up about 9pm with amps, electric guitars, bass, drums, dancers and groupies! We had a full-blown concert rocking out in our yard for a good 30 minutes. Our landlady’s family explained what was happening – traveling minstrels come knocking, play a few songs, and are given puja and money. Not just scraps either – serious money! The grandfather who lives above us tried to get me to join with my guitar so I would get money too I politely declined and played photographer instead.
While I love learning about the holidays in Nepal, I’m looking forward to the end of school and business closings so that the bulk of my research can get underway. I have to get started – I have at least 23 schools to go to, plus however many organizations I come across!
Lots to do, so little time to do it…
Post Script:
The luggage returned, but was missing all of my research, my hard drive, batteries and my Under Armor shirt. I was not happy. I was reimbursed for the missing items, but received nothing for the 2 months the bag was missing. The moral of this story? I will be Fed Ex-ing my bag home.
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