Festivals are the crucial part of Nepalese society. Along with the celebration festival, is also about promoting our values, ideologies, identity and continuity. Bidding the farewell to one of the biggest festival of Nepal (Dashain) now, it’s time to welcome another major festival, festival of light (Tihar).  Tihar which is known as Swanti among the Newar and Deepawali among the Madhesis is celebrated for five days.

Beginning with Kaag Tihar, the day when crow is worshipped and feed with the hope to ward off the death, followed by Kukur Tihar. The second day of Tihar, when the dogs are worshipped and offered with the delicious. Then it comes the Gai Tihar and Lakshmi Puja. In this day the people worship the cow, decorate their home with flowers and light to welcome goddesses of wealth, Laxmi. In the evening people draw mandala and the girls go around the community dancing, singing and showering the blessing which is called bhailo. The fourth day is called Govardhan puja when ox is worshipped. This day is also celebrated as Nepal Samba (New Year) by Newar. In this day Newar community celebrate Mha puja, where people worship their own self wishing the well-being and happiness. In the evening deusi is played. And the last day, Bhai Tika which is also known as Kija Puja on this day sister put tika on the forehead of brother praying for long life and success of their brother. It is believed on this day goddesses Yamuna pleaded the god of death, Yama and saved her brother from death.  

Usually, Tihar is about light, laughter, song, dance, eating delish and hustling for puja and tika but amid the Covid -19 it has become more like fear, concern and worries. People have lost their peace of mind as the cases of coronavirus are taking a heavy toll on the life. More than 170,743 cases of coronavirus along with more than 937 deaths have been recorded in Nepal. People are afraid to come out of their houses and traveling in public transportation is still topic of questioning. This pandemic has left people with questions like “how to celebrate and protect our culture?” “Either or not to celebrate?” and soon. Well if it is to celebrate like last year: by gathering the crowd, traveling from here to there then it’s big, “NO”. Cause our one irresponsible action may lead to vulnerability of the whole society.

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Still we can enjoy the major part of celebration. Guess, “How?”

It’s easy with advanced technology of our world today. With one click we can easily connect with people we desire, share our moments, laugh and tease.  Through, different online media like messenger, whatsapp, viber, zoom etc. we can wish our relatives, friends face to face. We mayn’t be infected by the virus but it doesn’t mean we won’t be infected. So, we need to be responsible and make sure not to go outside unnecessarily to welcome coronavirus to our home. We should make use of technology. We can receive tika through video chat and share our blessing virtually. We can also come out in the roof of our house and invite other member of community to do same than together we can sing, dance and maintain rule at the same time. Instead of creating crowd in the market or shop we can ask for online delivery, cook the sweet by ourselves looking at the YouTube tutorial and soon. Like this we can grow, celebrate, enjoy and be safe.