In Australia, the average worker gets four weeks of paid holidays a year as well as a handful of about half a dozen public holidays for community- or sometimes nation-wide celebrations like Christmas and Easter. Compared to many other countries, it’s quite a generous allowance. But in Nepal, festivals are more a weekly event than a special occasion and working life is interspersed with a veritable bounty of public holidays. In the last two months alone, we’ve enjoyed no less than five festival days.
There’s no mistaking when there’s a festival in Nepal either. No matter which caste or ethnic group is celebrating the holiday, it’s inevitably marked with colourful and noisy public gatherings in squares and streets. Our first experience of Nepali festivals was Gai Jatra, a Newari celebration to remember and pray for friends and relatives who have died over the past year. It sounds like quite a sombre occasion, but actually there’s quite a party atmosphere. People parade through the streets with tall, woven bamboo monuments to the dead, drinking homemade liquor and carrying out complicated dance that involves banging wooden sticks with a partner.
The next major event (though there were some lesser festivals – holidays – in between) was Teej, which is exclusively for women. The concept of having a women’s only public holiday is also unheard of in Australia, but actually, it’s not a bad deal for men – the purpose of Teej is for women to fast and pray for the long lives of their husbands, or their future husband if they’re not yet married. It’s a colourful day with a special sense of camaraderie among the women, who dress up in red and spend hours queuing together to receive a blessing from Hindu priests, then spend the afternoon dancing to loud folk music with no shortage of enthusiasm despite their empty stomachs. The red ocean of thousands of women bouncing and waving to the music is an impressive sight to see.
This week is Indra Jatra when the Kumari, a prepubescent girl who Hindus believe is a living goddess, comes out to see the people and give a blessing to the king. This year happens to be the 250th anniversary of the festival and we gathered with thousands of others, waiting for four hours in the rain, before the Kumari was carried out to see us. Dressed in a suitable impressive gold and red outfit, she was seated in one of three huge, garlanded chariots, which were then dragged by mobs of cheering people in a circuit around the temple square. Even this festival bore the marks of the political turmoil though – as well as being a notable anniversary, it was also the first time in history that the king didn’t attend, allegedly because the largely pro-republican interim government refused to provide him with extra security. He was represented by the Prime Minister instead.
But the festivals aren’t over yet. In October, there’s the 10 days of Dashain, the Hindu equivalent of the 12 days of Christmas and the biggest – and longest – festival of the year, during the length of which offices across the country shut down. It’s followed closely by Tihar, just three weeks later in November. Tihar, the festival of lights, gets a pretty big wrap in travel guidebooks as one of the prettiest festivals in Nepal’s calendar. People celebrate it by stringing fairy lights around their houses and across the streets, and burning the butter candles that you can already see elderly people sitting in doorways painstakingly making. The best is yet to come!
There’s no mistaking when there’s a festival in Nepal either. No matter which caste or ethnic group is celebrating the holiday, it’s inevitably marked with colourful and noisy public gatherings in squares and streets. Our first experience of Nepali festivals was Gai Jatra, a Newari celebration to remember and pray for friends and relatives who have died over the past year. It sounds like quite a sombre occasion, but actually there’s quite a party atmosphere. People parade through the streets with tall, woven bamboo monuments to the dead, drinking homemade liquor and carrying out complicated dance that involves banging wooden sticks with a partner.
The next major event (though there were some lesser festivals – holidays – in between) was Teej, which is exclusively for women. The concept of having a women’s only public holiday is also unheard of in Australia, but actually, it’s not a bad deal for men – the purpose of Teej is for women to fast and pray for the long lives of their husbands, or their future husband if they’re not yet married. It’s a colourful day with a special sense of camaraderie among the women, who dress up in red and spend hours queuing together to receive a blessing from Hindu priests, then spend the afternoon dancing to loud folk music with no shortage of enthusiasm despite their empty stomachs. The red ocean of thousands of women bouncing and waving to the music is an impressive sight to see.
This week is Indra Jatra when the Kumari, a prepubescent girl who Hindus believe is a living goddess, comes out to see the people and give a blessing to the king. This year happens to be the 250th anniversary of the festival and we gathered with thousands of others, waiting for four hours in the rain, before the Kumari was carried out to see us. Dressed in a suitable impressive gold and red outfit, she was seated in one of three huge, garlanded chariots, which were then dragged by mobs of cheering people in a circuit around the temple square. Even this festival bore the marks of the political turmoil though – as well as being a notable anniversary, it was also the first time in history that the king didn’t attend, allegedly because the largely pro-republican interim government refused to provide him with extra security. He was represented by the Prime Minister instead.
But the festivals aren’t over yet. In October, there’s the 10 days of Dashain, the Hindu equivalent of the 12 days of Christmas and the biggest – and longest – festival of the year, during the length of which offices across the country shut down. It’s followed closely by Tihar, just three weeks later in November. Tihar, the festival of lights, gets a pretty big wrap in travel guidebooks as one of the prettiest festivals in Nepal’s calendar. People celebrate it by stringing fairy lights around their houses and across the streets, and burning the butter candles that you can already see elderly people sitting in doorways painstakingly making. The best is yet to come!
1 comment:
"Festive Occasions" yes, because it's Nepal..
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