Birthdays, Deathdays, and Every Festival In Between

30 August

Wednesday I exchanged the cake, candles, and cards that usually accompany birthdays for gifts of fruit, money, and a big red tikka that were given by, not for, my aamaa. We were celebrating her 73^rd birthday –and boy does she look good! To help improve my Nepali skills, she has taken to acting out various animals to help me remember the Nepali word (my personal favorite has been her lion impersonation!) and has energy to rival Christine Stone’s! I brought a taste of America to the table by giving my aamaa a homemade birthday crown to wear for the day. Extended family members arrived in the afternoon for the birthday ceremony in which my aamaa lit candles and dabbed tikka on our foreheads for luck.

I later found out that birthdays are not traditionally celebrated in Nepali families, although due to Western influence of movies and media, younger generations are having their share of parties. Instead, the Nepalese culture recognizes family member “deathdays” in memorial of the individual’s life. Saturday evening I paid a visit to my nearby cousins and once again received tikka, although this time it was yellow in honor of my deceased grandfather. The ceremony included more gifts of fruit and money…and what’s a celebration without a dinner of dhal bhaat?

But the festivals do not stop there! This week I’ve witnessed a number of Nepali festivals, including Gia Jatra, Jania Purna, Hilya Jatra which are celebrated by dressing up, dancing, and of course, food. Buffalo, to be exact. As I turned the corner into the bazaar on my way to school on Thursday, I was taken by surprise to see a large group of men huddled around a giant buffalo carcass that had just been slaughtered. (It was at that moment I realized I hadn’t had my usual early morning wakeup call from what I had assumed to be a cow living next door.) And this is only the start of the holiday season, so I’ve been told to prepare for many more to end up on my dinner table…