Gai Jatra

Today was a festival called Gai Jatra in Nepal. This festival might resemble Halloween to those back in the States, because the kids all dress up and go around collecting sweets down the streets. Actually, the festival started because a long time ago the royal king and queen lost their son. The queen was seemingly inconsolably grief-stricken. To help cheer her up, the king ordered that all of the families who have lost someone in the past year dress up and celebrate to show that despite their loss and sadness, they can still enjoy themselves and that life goes on.

Typically now only the kids dress up, but the whole family will parade in the streets, sometimes with a memorial for their lost loved one. They also lead a cow to the main square (Gai Jatra means cow festival).

I thought this festival really gave me a little intimacy on the more negative side of Nepali culture.. While seemingly well-off kids paraded in very nice costumes with their families and collected goodies, groups of unsupervised street kids were trying to dress themselves up with whatever they could find to get similar treats from the women passing them out. They almost never succeeded though, showing me for the first time some semblance of a class structure in Nepal (which I've heard is actually quite rigid).

This particular photo was taken in Bhaktapur. They have a lovely Gai Jatra festival, with huge monuments to lost loved ones paraded in the streets while they perform stick dances. Lots of people gather on the edges of the streets to watch all the parades. This wide-eyed kid with his family caught my attention.