<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238229c7e80680e0c736cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1364"/><figcaption>The Gurju Paltan getting ready to kick off the Kumari chariot parade. ALL PHOTOS: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption></figure>Patan has Rato Machindranath, Bhaktapur has Biska, and the Newā people of Kathmandu have Yen yā as their biggest festival.Also known as Indra Jatra, the eight-day centuries old festival is marked by various masked dance prades representing different deities and demons performed in the choks and dabalis of the ancient town.The temples and intersections are lined with oblation of samaya baji and the chariots of Kumari, Bharaiv and Ganesh are paraded around different parts of town on different days.There are many origin stories of the festival, the more common of which is the one where Lord Indra comes to Kathmandu Valley disguised as a human, in search of a parijat flower for his mother Dagini. The locals catch him and parade him in the town center.Read Also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-legend-behind-the-myth-of-indra-jatra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The legend behind the myth of Indra Jatra</a>, Desmond DoigA part of the festival is an reenactment of this legend with a representative idol of Indra at the city center, pulu kishi, the white elephant going around town searching for his master and Dagini coming down to earth in search of her son.Some version also say that the festival is the worship of nature and ancestors. In Indra Chok, the Aju dya diety, commonly known as Akash Bhairav, the male ancestor of the indigenous Newā people, is brought down from his sanctum and kept in a raised platform for eight days.Lesser known than Kathmandu, Bhaktapur too celebrates Indra Jatra for eight days a part of which involves taking the idol if Goddess Indrayani for rituals and a Dipawali.Here are some of the different dances and aspects of Yen ya captured by Nepali Times photojournalist Suman Nepali.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238259c7e80680e0c736djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1406"><figcaption>Living god Ganesh looks out of a window during Indra Jatra festival in Kathmandu.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238289c7e80680e0c736ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1364"><figcaption>Living goddess Kumari during the Indra Jatra Festival</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/6372382b9c7e80680e0c736fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1364"><figcaption>People gather at Basantapur Darbar Square to view the chariot procession and masked dances.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/6372382f9c7e80680e0c7370jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1428"><figcaption>Devotees pull the chariots of Ganesh, Bhairav and Kumari.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238329c7e80680e0c7371jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1234"><figcaption>President Bidya Devi Bhandari, Mayor of Kathmandu Balen Shah and Deputy Mayor of Kathmandu Sunita Dangol with other dignitaries in Gaddi Baithak.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238359c7e80680e0c7372jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1296"><figcaption>Halchok Bhairav dance</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238389c7e80680e0c7373jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1364"><figcaption>Pulu Kisi</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/6372383b9c7e80680e0c7374jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1372"><figcaption>Living god Bhairav during teh chariot procession.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/6372383e9c7e80680e0c7375jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1306"><figcaption>People gather infront of Hatu dya (Swet Bhairav).</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238419c7e80680e0c7376jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1350"><figcaption>Majipa Lakhe</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238449c7e80680e0c7377jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1464"><figcaption>The idol of Akash Bhairav (Aju dya) is put on a raised platform in Indrachok.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/637238479c7e80680e0c7378jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1364"><figcaption>Indra's mother Dagini, comes down to earth in search of her son.</figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114131144/6372384a9c7e80680e0c7379jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="2048" height="1364"><figcaption>Dancers perform Di pyakhan (Devi naach).</figcaption></figure>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqG_okS_wPI&amp;feature=emb_logoRead Also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/are-you-ready-for-indra-jatra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Are you ready for Indra Jatra</a>, Nepali Times<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/suburban-tales/wine-and-women-during-yenya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wine and women during Yenya</a>, Pratibha Tuladhar

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Kathmandu marks the Yen yā festival

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161124/636d17989c7e80680e0ac777jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Women-only night at Indra Jatra festival where participants drink rice wine from Swet Bhairav’s mouth as a blessing. Photos: MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>Here is what the image shows:  her face turned towards the sky, her mouth open, catching a fountain of thwon (rice wine), flowing down Hatu Dyaa’s mouth, straight into hers.Her eyes are shut, like they were caging inside them a perfect moment of desire. It is an image from a day at the Indra Jatra week, now, popularly known as a women-only night at the festival.“How was it?” I ask her.“It was exhilarating!” she texts back.In 2017, the Yenya or Indra Jatra committee set aside a day for women to drink from Hatu Dyaa (Swet Bhairab) an activity which in the past had not been segregated by gender, and was therefore accessible mostly to men.“It gets quite rowdy,” my friend says. And explains she had gone prepared with a “quick dry tee and shoes and all”. She says she would love to do it again and I assure her I would join her.Growing up in Naradevi Tole, tucked away in old Kathmandu, Yenya was the focal point of the year for me, and not any other festival. In the evenings, the family would set out for a walk through the festivities.One time, my काका raised me through a crowd of men, taking me all the way to where the wine was trickling down the mouth of Swet Bhairav. I carry a faint memory of being scooped up from the ground and being flung under the massive face of the deity as some wine spray hit me.As a grown-up, however, I have only experienced the ceremony from a distance. I got on a call this week with some girlfriends who had attended the event in 2019, and felt an excitement rise in my belly, looking at images of them jostling to get under the wine tap.“I definitely want to do it again,” Anbika Giri laughed. “It was hard to push others and go all the way to the wine pipe, but I still managed. It splashed  over my face, body, mouth, my hair. But I also came away with a sense of achievement.”Bhawana Gurung, who was alongside Anbika that evening, did not exactly get to drink, but was definitely showered on as she got shoved around in the crowd: “I came home smelling like thwon.”Anbika recalls how everyone around her looked overwhelmed by the experience, despite clothes and hair that had become soaked in rice wine. She calls the experience a way of exercising your will. She calls it a symbol.“I saw it as a way of choosing. To push your way through the crowd and then to compete to drink — not everyone gets to do it. But the thing is, you’re not being hindered. You’re making a choice to experience it,” says Anbika. “Fun events for Nepali women are limited. We’re told that enjoyment is not right. We internalise it. So this activity is a symbol to reverse that. Even if it was water instead of wine, people would still go. It is about claiming space.”Coming from a Janjati community, Bhawana has experienced more “freedom” than her friends from other communities. “I think it’s a privilege that we don’t have to observe seclusion when we’re on our periods. I’ve also had freedom of mobility. But my mother would still bar me from drinking alcohol, which means that even within our community, my freedom is inferior to that of a man. So, the event for me was not so much about drinking, as much as it was about participating at free-will.”Bhawana’s main take away: “We have festivals where women aren’t allowed to go to temples or attend certain festivals. If this festival can be inclusive, so can the others.”<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110161124/636d179c9c7e80680e0ac778jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000">Festivals, in different cultures, are known to restrict women’s freedom as they are mostly confined to kitchen duties, while men revel. Then, there is also the sunset curfew for women. The liberty for women to drink from a deity, has also been seen a mark of how women have the right to be outside their homes at night, participating in celebrations alongside their male relatives and friends.Ever since drinking from the Swet Bhairav spout opened to women five years ago, women clamouring before Hatu Dyaa, have been some of the most viewed photos on social media. While a lot of these images clearly come from the male gaze, there is also the photo-opportunity side to it, the two strands representing two very different things.Anbika says media has glamorised the event like it has always done with events where women and drinks come together. She also cites examples of front-page images from Tundikhel during festivals like Udhauli, Ubhauli and Sonam Lhosar, where it is always young women who are splashed across the pages. There is certainly the risk of over glamorisation of an event eclipsing the meaning of it, she argues.Some images of women drinking at Indra Jatra, however, have come to represent the other side of the gaze. They depict women as aspirants to be seen as equals in a society where the festive nightlights and the right of participating in a fun activity are male entitlement.Bhawana argues that the festival, with so many female deities at its centre, must have always had women at the heart of it. “When I watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqG_okS_wPI">Anil Chitrakar</a> talking about how Indra’s mother makes the journey from Heaven to Earth to rescue her son, I instantly thought of how the festival’s crux was a <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-legend-behind-the-myth-of-indra-jatra/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">woman’s journey</a> and how that is an empowering story in itself.”Even though Bhawana moved to Kathmandu many years ago and lived in Patan, she says she has never felt like she could be a participant in the jatras of the valley, however, a sentiment that Anbika echoes: “People who are migrants to Kathmandu shy away from local festivals even though we live here. And no one invites us. Who takes the first step to make them more inclusive is also a thing.”Asha Thapa, who has been quietly listening to our banter interrupts: “I will surely attend the festival in a pandemic-free world for the experience. I come from a community where even as someone in my late 20s, I’ve never had alcohol with my parents and to give women an opportunity to drink publicly seems me like a way of saying that the culture is making space for women to be who they want. Whether to drink or not, is also a choice women should get to make, don’t you think?”For over a decade now, I have sauntered around Basantapur alone during Yenya, observing its many eccentricities and critiquing its ways that are beyond my comprehension and sense of agreement. But I have also thought that if a festival can keep improvising to make way for changes in society, it also means there is hope that the culture will keep up with its people.And so, in a pandemic-free world, I will probably jostle alongside my girlfriends, sharing a moment with them before Hatu Dyaa. For I have learned that sometimes it takes a moment in our memory to set us free.Suburban Tales is a monthly column in Nepali Times based on real people (with some names changed) in Pratibha’s life.

Pratibha Tuladhar

Wine and women during Yenya

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141116/636ba8839c7e80680e0737e7jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1125"/><figcaption>Parijat night jasmine flowers for which, it is believed, lord of heaven Indra descended upon Kathmandu. Photo: KUNDA DIXIT</figcaption></figure>Indra Jatra, or Yenya, commemorates the descent of a god from heaven dressed in peasant's clothes and bent on a very human pursuit: stealing flowers.The deity concerned was no ordinary god. He was Indra, the Lord of Heaven. When he descended on Kathmandu wrapped in a concealing cloud, no one recognised him. So much so, that when he was discovered gathering parijat night jasmine flowers, people caught and bound him hand and foot like a common thief.For reasons best known to himself, Indra refused to reveal his identity and none suspected it even though his celestial elephant began searching the streets of Kathmandu for him. In heaven, Indra's mother, who had required the parijat flowers for the observance of a festival, grew so anxious at her son's disappearance that she also descended on Kathmandu and lost no time in letting it be known who she and her son were.Great was the people's rejoicing and, presumably, their embarrassment. King and commoner alike celebrated their amazing good fortune with feasts and processions, song and dance. And when their divine guests were about to depart they asked a boon of Indra's mother.Would she take with her to heaven the souls of all those who had died that year? This she readily granted, besides bestowing a gift of her own -- a gentle morning mist that would blanket the Kathmandu Valley during the autumn and winter months to ripen the harvest. Farmers are still apt to call it the gift of milk.As for the souls of the dead, she advised that they form a chain behind her holding on to each other, with the first taking a firm grip on her sari. Away they went like the tail of a great kite. They hadn't travelled far, when something as unfortunate as spiritual vertigo or fatigue caused the chain break and all the souls fell into a lake atop a mountain south of Kathmandu, where bereaved families went to worship and honour them.<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221109141116/636ba8869c7e80680e0737e8jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1108" height="1500"><figcaption>Illustration: DESMOND DOIG</figcaption></figure>Today, Kathmandu celebrates Indra Jatra which, fused together with the festival of the living goddess Kumari, and the epic of the Nepali King Yalambar who was slain by Krishna at the battle of the Mahabharata, is Nepal's most colourful celebration. Everyone, from the king, the royal family, ministers, government servants, the general public-even foreign diplomats, are involved.For this is the time of the year when the king receives the blessings of the Kumari who places tika on his forehead. Superstition, well supported by strange circumstance or coincidence, enhances the belief that the Kumari, in fact, bestows upon the king the right to rule for another year. When, on occasion, she has mistakenly placed tika on the wrong forehead dire consequences have resulted.This too is the time when all the valley's Bhairab masks are displayed, particularly the great silver mask that Yalambar wore to battle, and the even larger, bejewelled golden mask of the white Bhairab in the old palace.All over the valley, in city, town and village are strange erections of wood, like wayside crucifixions, to which are tied masked dummies representing the captive Indra. Numerous images of other gods are brought out to watch the festival, for nobody, not even the hosts of heaven, would like to miss so wondrous an event.Hung from a tall pole in the old palace square of Kathmandu is a colourful banner representing the flag presented to Indra by Vishnu. As long as it is there it means that the lord of heaven is in Kathmandu, bestowing upon the city and the country, his blessings and protection. At the foot of the pole is a small cage, both confining and enshrining an image of Indra and a golden elephant, his traditional mount. They represent the god's captivity, so many long legends ago.The pole itself is invested with significance. Some days before the festival begins, a government appointed priest and a select group of men from Kathmandu make for a pine forest not far from Bhaktapur. There, following ancient ritual and on-the-spot portents, they select a tree, offer prayer and blood sacrifice and after felling it, drag it in procession to the potters' village of Thimi.Men of Thimi bear it to Kathmandu's Tundikhel from where it is finally taken to the old palace square in Kathmandu by men of the city. There follows a blessing by the royal priest, who comes accompanied by soldiers in the olden uniforms of King Prithvi Narayan's Gorkha army carrying muskets and swords, and marching to a military band out of history. As the pole is raised into position, cannons boom and music plays.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqG_okS_wPIWhen the festival is done, the great pole is taken in procession to the river Bagmati where it is immersed, cut into pieces to feed the perpetual flame that burns at yet another Bhairab shrine on the river bank. So much for the living, for whom the Indra and Kumari jatras are carnivals of numerous attractions: dances representing the demons Lakhe and Dagini, enactments of the mortal incarnations of Vishnu, folk dramas, processions of masked 'deities,' a dancing elephant made of bamboo, painted cloth and human legs, and the massive trundle of the Kumari's rath, followed by lesser chariots of the living Ganesh and Bhairab, virgin boys selected in much the same way as the Kumari. And there is the king who can be seen more closely and more relaxed than at any other official occasion.For the dear departed are processions of lights and symbolic processions of men and women, holding onto each other in the way the spirits of old held hopefully to the sari of Indra's heaven-bound mother. There are prayers and fasts and feasts, and finally every bereaved family sends at least one member to the mountain top lake where the spirits once fell.For those who like a more scholarly reason for festivals such as this, it is thought that the warrior king, whose Aryan forces overpowered India, inevitably turned his attention to the Himalaya. Perhaps the warlike hill people nagged his flanks. Leading an army against them, he was captured and held prisoner until he promised some boon of settlement. The great Nepali king Yalambar ruled Nepal at the time. No one less than a god, and the Lord of Heaven at that, could have fought and come to terms with him: an interesting thought as festival chariots toll through Kathmandu.An artist, writer, and designer, Desmond Doig moved from Calcutta to Kathmandu in the 1970s, and made the Valley his home. He died in Pokhara in 1984. Nepali Times has serialised chapters from his book, In the Kingdom of the Gods, from which this piece is extracted.

The legend behind the myth of Indra Jatra

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a587f9c7e80680e05483bjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1886"/><figcaption>All photos: SAMIR SHRESTHA</figcaption></figure>As Kathmandu got ready to celebrate Yenya Punhi (Indra Jatra) with its Kumari chariot procession last week, the masked dancers were also getting ready for their popular street performances.Laxman Ranjit was inside the Lakhey House in the Basantapur Square in Kathmandu, preparing for the ritual. The dancers do not just don masks, leg bells, and colourful flowing skirts, they have to actually go into a divine trance where they become the embodiment of the gods and demons they represent.Whoever wears the mask gets energy from it, and is consumed by its holy aura. As other devotees help Laxman Ranjit get dressed up, his demeanour changes. It looks like the spirit is already entering his body.Finally, a white turban is wrapped on his head which will hold the mask on his head. Four men  hold Ranjit on either side to restrain him as the red lakhey mask is put on.As he is led to the door, there are some rituals to perform: an oil lamp is waved in front of his face as Ranjit’s body starts to shake – at first imperceptibly, but with more and more energy.  Outside on the street, hundreds of people are waiting eagerly for the first lakheys to emerge, as they have for centuries before.Once out of the Lakhey House Laxman Ranjit’s energy explodes like a volcano. The shouts and screams of the crowd seems to energise him even more as he leaps, and spins like a dervish.Masked dancers are ordinary people going about their daily jobs the rest of the year, but at Indra Jatra, designated masked dancers are possessed by the divine spirit and can change into powerful demons or gods just by putting on the holy mask.It is the power of faith, devotion and a responsibility to carry on the culture of their forebears that keeps this festival of the Kathmandu Valley Civilisation alive.<img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58829c7e80680e05483cjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1762"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58859c7e80680e05483djpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1887"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58889c7e80680e05483ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1869"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a588c9c7e80680e05483fjpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1765"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a588f9c7e80680e054840jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1950"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58929c7e80680e054841jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1933"><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108141124/636a58959c7e80680e054842jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="3000" height="1993">Read also:<a style="background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/kathmandu-celebrates-yenya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kathmandu celebrates Yenyā</a>, Monika Deupala

Getting behind the divine mask

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