And it’s here again, once again at our premises, the festival of light and delight.
Tihar/Dipawali, following the greatest festival of our’s, Dashain, bringing more joy, happiness and blessedness to our life. Not to forget keeping us busy for the preparation of firecrackers, lighting electric lights, candles and sacred ‘diyos’. As per the Nepali culture, it is celebrated for five total days where each day is dedicated to different things. Yes! we celebrate Dipawali with divine pleasure and end the festive season with a style.
Dipawali starts with serving the bird ‘crow’, our so-called ‘messenger’. I say it ‘ancient messenger’ though. We call it ‘Kaag tihar’. People provide good food to them and hope that they would bring good news in coming days.
The second day. ‘kukur tihar’. Oh! I love this day. The day of our lovely pets, ‘Dogs’. We call them the most loyal animal who guard our house throughout day and night. We love them more, fed them their favourite meal and plea to them to stay as loyal as they are and secure us.
Then, comes the day when people have to satisfy Goddess ‘Laxmi’, ‘The Goddess of wealth/money’. Everyone gets busy cleaning their house and decorating it with diyas and lights for people believe that She, The Goddess Laxmi will enter only into the neat and well decorated house. No wonder, we can see every houses brightened up and welcoming her to reside in there forever.
The following day, people celebrate ‘Gobardan pooja’ worshiping the sacred animal in Hindu religion ‘Cow’. We call her as ‘Gaumata’, worship her early in the morning, provide good food than as usual hoping she will bless us.
The last day, ‘Bhaitika’ which everyone awaits so desperately. The day of ‘Siblings’. The day to strengthen the relation among siblings. On this day, sisters put ‘tika’ on the forehead of her brother and decorate it with colors wishing her brother’s life be filled with such colors of happiness and success. It’s actually like worshiping brothers, feeding them sweet and tasty foods. And the brothers return the favor by giving her the gifts.
And the festival gets over.
Well, it’s all about religious belief. Doing all these and wishing a pile of things, people never know if these will work out or not. It’s just a way to celebrate the festival and be happy being together. Feeding good foods to crows & dogs hoping to get better service from them on these days, it’s just hypothetical. If you have a tender heart, serve them everyday and never hope for any more, there’s no need to wait for a specified day. And Laxmi pooja, it’s not like you’ll make your house so clean, well decorated and The goddess will immediately enter filling your house with money and wealth. You just need to be holy from inside, be sacred and you’ll always stay blessed. Making homes brighter than ever for five days is not gonna make Goddess Laxmi happy, rather do it everyday, throughout the year. I wonder at these times, what if we do these things to brighten up our homes everyday? We need money every time, throughout the year but why worshipping her and making our homes neat and clean for only these particular days? But then, its ‘chali aayeko chalan’, our Neapli culture and we cannot decline it.
Anyway, I wish everyone to have a splendid celebration.
May the Goddess Laxmi will always be there at your right no matter if your house is well decorated or not. May she stay there forever to make you people more wealthy, prosperous and lucrative. May the bond between the siblings gets even more tighter and stronger on the auspicious occasion of ‘bhaitika’. And may the relationship never fades away.
Happy Tihar/Dipawali,
Lighten up your home, Brighten up your life.
Enjoy Responsibly!
