Another Week of Festivals

Tihar, or the festival of lights, takes place every year as one of the major Hindu festivals. The festival was very fun to experience. I’m writing about what I was told everything symbolizes, but Hinduism is complex and varies amongst different ethnic groups and castes. This festival overall worships the goddess Laxmi, who brings wealth and prosperity.

Every night, my host sisters would carefully decorate the outside of the house with beautiful colored powders to form an intricute flower and candles all around the outside to welcome the goddess into our home. Immediate afterwards, curious dogs would come and walk all over the powder creating a big mess and the wind would blow out the candles. But for the momen when they were lit and illuminating the house, it was stunning.

After lighting all the candles, the kids would go out and play a game called Dheusi/Bhilo (boys play Dheusi, girls play Bhilo). It’s not so much a game as a singing competition. They go door to door and sing at the top of their lungs, until the poor family inside wakes up and gives them a big basket of rice, fruit and money. The singers keep harassing the family and won’t leave until they’ve added at least another 100 rupees to the original offering. And then they go on to the next house. I did this every night with my host sister and some of her friends. They made a ton of money. The first night alone, they earned $35, about what a family will earn in a month!

It was fun the first few hours of the night, but they kept doing it until 3am every day. One night we went to a house and all the lighters were off. The girls just opened the door (there wasn’t any lock) and stood around singing even though the family was sleeping. Eventually they shook the mother awake but everyone else in the house slept through it (I don’t know how, the girls were singing very loudly).

During the day, there was special worship:

The first day of worship is for crows, who are messangers to the gods, reporting on what we do. My host mom left out a big plate of rice and sweets on the roof of our house for the crows to enjoy.

The second day is of dogs. All the little doggies of my village got flower garlands placed around their necks and tikka on their foreheads (red colored powder). I didn’t see anyone hitting or kicking dogs on that day. The belief is that dogs are messangers of one of the reincarnations of Lord Shiva.

The next day is the worship of cows, who are believed to be gods. People place flower garlands on them and tikkam and then waft the general cow-air towards themselves. My village doesn’t have any cows, so we didn’t do anything on this day.

The fourth day is the worship of bulls, which is the same thing as the cow worship, except that bulls aren’t gods. I didn’t see any worship on this day either.

The fifth day is the worship of men, specifically sisters worship brothers. My host father and brother sat on special chairs while my host father’s sister and my host sisters gave them huge baskets overflowing with all of their favorite sweets. I also participated in placing tikka on my host brother and giving him fruit, even though it made me very uncomfortable. The brothers then give the sisters colored powder on their foreheads.