Tihar-the festival of lights

We have just returned to work after the  4 day Tihar festival holiday. In India this hindu festival is known as diwali and is second only to dasain in importance in the hindu calandar.

Tihar market in the street on the way to work

 The first day is Kaag tikka when crows and other birds are worshipped by having food left out for them.

Kaag (crow ) food left out for the birds

Ladies making marigold malas

This is followed by kukur tikka, the day when dogs throughout Nepal are worshipped with good food, malas( flower garlands around the neck) and tikka ( coloured powder on the forehead). The dogs are worshipped so they will continue to guard homes in the coming year. We saw many dogs like this one  so full of food that they were just lying in the sun dozing all the afternoon of kukur tika.

A very full dog who cannot finish all his tihar meal

The third day of tihar is gai tikka when all cows, are worshipped with extra food, malla and tikka . Cows are sacred here, hindus believe them to be an incarnation of the goddess laxmi ( the goddess of wealth and prosperity). The cows wander freely about although they are supposed to be restricted to outside the ring road. Often they can be found lying down in the road as busy traffic swerves to avoid them. The penalties for killing a cow are severe and their meat is  forbidden food for a hindu.

Happy cow with mala and tikka on her special day!

In the evening of gai tika there is great excitement as homes are decorated with multiple candles, and sometimes with electric lights.This diwali when a trail of footprints is drawn from outside in the street into the house to show the goddess laxmi the way in. Mandelas (circular patterns of coloured powder ) are painstakingly drawn outside the houses , with flowers and candles for worship (puja). A trail of red mud mixed with cow dung ( rato mato ) is laid into the house since the cow is sacred. devout hindus also sprinkle cows urine in their homes. Firecrackers and fireworks are let off in the streets and groups of girls go singing and dancing from door to door.
There is special puja ( worship) in the temples for Tihar.
Many churches also have special Christian programmes at this time since everyone gets at least 4 days of holiday. It is a happy festival with families reunited and lots of feasting.

Mandela, candles and rato mato path  leading into a house 

The final day of tihar is Bhai tikka when sisters worship their brothers with tikka and malla and gifts of dried fruit and nuts are traditionally given. Some siblings travel long distances ot meet up and feast on this day.I would be happier if the sisters also got worshipped by their brothers but this is not the case in such a male dominated society. I read recently that 11.5% of Nepali women were married before they were 14 and 21% have been  deprived of education due to their early marriage when they would have preferred to continue their schooling. Of course, early marriage ,and child labour, happened in the UK too, only a couple of hundred years ago but it does not make it right.

It is good that the government has now raised the legal age for marriage to 20 years and has good policies in place to stop child labour. However, 41% f the nepali population are children below 16 years and 34% of all nepali children are engaged in some kind of work on a regular basis. As always here, there is a considerable gap between the policies and the reality.
Our project work on improving girls enrollment and attendance at school is part of a move here to give girls better life chances by keeping them in school to continue their education.for longer. Incidentally, girls who marry young (and give birth between 15 and 20 years) are twice as likely to die in childbirth compared with those who do not marry until age 20. Poor nutrition and rudimentary health care make childbirth a very hazardous event in many remote areas. Allowing a girl to continue her education for longer can therefore sometimes even save her life!