A few observations from Kathmandu this weekend:
A woman drops the three overflowing bags of trash she’s been carrying in the large garbage pile, reeking of rotten and decaying food, on the street next to the temple she then enters to do her daily puja (prayers).
A group of Buddhist monks, men clad in maroon and orange robes who have renounced all worldly goods and possessions in honor of the dharma, drive away from a monastery in a brand-new Toyota SUV.
Women celebrate the final, and most important, day of Teej, a festival honoring and celebrating women, by fasting for twenty-four hours in honor of their husbands.
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Teej represents the devotion of a wife to her husband. According to Hindu tradition, the goddess of Parvati fasted and prayed for days to demonstrate her dedication to her husband, Shiva. Today, the festival spans three days (or longer, depending on the family), and is celebrated by women getting together with the other women in their extended family or friends to dance and sing and pray. As I mentioned above, the final day of Teej is marked by a fast in honor of their husbands, or, for unmarried women, in the hope of finding a good husband.
This past weekend was Teej here in Nepal. Thursday and Friday were the days of dancing and singing, and Saturday was the day of the fast. Nearly all schools in Nepal had classes cancelled for those days. My program, however, remained on regular schedule with Nepali language classes and lectures on Thursday and Friday. My mother, sister, didi (older sister, but technically my young aunt who lives with us), and younger brother all departed on Thursday for my mother’s family’s house outside of the city to celebrate Teej. I stayed at home with my father and cousin, Bikash, who also lives with us. It felt like living in a bachelor pad. We slept in and watched soccer or cricket matches on the little TV in our living room. We discussed politics and the differences between American and Nepalese culture. We drank raksi (Nepali whisky) in the evening and ate goat meat with our daal bhat (rice and lentils) – the first meat I’ve had since arriving in Kathmandu.
On Sunday morning after the rain stopped, following a breakfast of, you guessed it, daal bhaat, my father instructed me to grab my rain jacket (just in case) and camera and follow him out the door. He probably also included information about where we were headed, but my limited Nepali prevented me from understanding that part of the dialogue. With no other option, I did as I was told.
It turned out he wanted to show me the sites of Kathmandu from the eyes of a Nepali, not a Western tourist. Our first stop was the Dharahara Tower in Sundara, an area in central Kathmandu. Originally built in 1832, this tall, white tower is over 200 feet tall and was intended to broadcast messages from the government of the city to the people. From the Dharahara Tower, we walked north to Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, the site of the old palace and home to numerous temples and now a major tourist destination. In order to bypass the 300 rupee fee to enter the square, enforced by men in uniforms carrying large and intimidating guns (a common sight here in Nepal), my father lead me through several “bango-tingo” alleyways to a side entrance without a ticket booth. I will try and post pictures soon because there is really no way to describe it without images. It was really refreshing to be in the company of a Nepali and avoid the constant hassling of local vendors trying to sell various trinkets, saying “please, madam, only 200 rupees.” I could have walked around for hours, but my father ushered me out of the square after only twenty minutes or so.
Our next destination was not quite as historical as the previous two, but equally as cultural perhaps: The Kathmandu Super Mall. Just as any shopping mall in the US may have a courtyard outside the main entrance, this mall had a large garden surrounding the gateway. Unlike the courtyards outside of American malls, the Kathmandu Mall had plastic deer and dinosaurs (yes, dinosaurs) in the garden as well as a temple with large figures representing Hindu gods and goddesses. Once inside, my father led me up the escalators to the top and fourth floor, and around a few of the floors before he said it was time to leave. The amount of time and attention paid to the Kathmandu Mall was comparable to his tour of Durbar Square and the Dharahara Tower. It was an interesting experience.
Just as I thought I was avoiding Teej celebrations all together, the next stop on my father’s tour was his own family’s celebration just outside of the city. We walked inside the house and saw about twenty-five women, all clad in beautiful and elaborate red saris and forearms covered in bangles, sitting cross-legged in a large circle. On the outside of the circle sat a Hindu priest, reading some sort of Hindu prayer. With each line he read, the women would toss various items into the center of the circle: everything from holy water, to rice, to flowers, to rupees, to bananas or apples, to color powders. Only the married women in the family gathered for the puja. A large mound of colorful debris accumulated in the center. Soon after we arrived, the puja finished and the women got up and went around to each other, giving each other tikas (a red smudge of the colored power, sometimes mixed with a little bit of water and uncooked rice, applied to the center of the forehead). I too received a tika. After all of the puja remnants had been cleared away (the rupees, whole fruit, and uncooked rice went to the priest), the women gathered for a meal before the dancing commenced. It was getting late in the afternoon at this point and I had a paper to finish and print so my father and I departed soon after.
When we arrived back home in Samakushi, the rest of my family had returned from the weekend of Teej-ing. As much as I liked the bachelor pad set up, I was grateful to see my mother and sisters back again. By the time I went to sleep last night, I had had daal bhaat three times, a record thus far. I intend to try and limit my daal bhaat consumption to just once today.
I’ll try to post some more pictures soon. We leave on Wednesday for a weeklong excursion to Darjeeling, India, where we’ll be visiting tea cooperatives and learning about the Gorkhaland movement in that area of West Bengal. I’ll write again after!
Take care,
Leti.
and how's darjeeling? POST!
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