Snapshot of Gaijatra Hindu Festival in Nepal

Life, Death, and Celebration in Nepal

Handing me a stick of smoking incense, a man pulls me into a bustling crowd of celebrants. Now part of a procession, I embrace the electric energy pulsing through the hundreds of people marching through the streets. I am in Bhaktapur, a city just east of Kathmandu, Nepal, and the intense, colorful rituals of the Gaijatra festival surround me.
The crowd winds through the labyrinthine roads of the city, Nepal’s hot and humid air lending an intoxicating warmth to the fervor all around me. As I make my way into Taumadhi Square – an impressive meeting place surrounded by towering Hindu temples and eclectic storefronts – I begin to notice the bright red chalky residue of tikka powder caked to the aged, crumbling brick streets. Children in masks, exuberant with joy amidst the festivities, dance to the mellifluous strains of music and laughter reverberating off of Bhaktapur’s ornate and dark wooden houses.
The purpose of Gaijatra, I quickly discover, is to honor the recently deceased. Each family promenades through the city behind someone holding a large plank of wood adorned with memories of a loved one. The festival also has an element of parody: people dress up as policemen and government officials, mocking the self-importance of the powerful.
By midday, all the families have convened in the center of Bhaktapur, forming a motley array of sounds, costumes, and dances beneath the colossal shadow of Nyatapola Pagoda, the tallest temple in Nepal. I stand on the pagoda’s steps, watching the festival below as I lean against a statue of Ganesh, an elephantine deity of Hinduism. Just below me I see a woman, adorned in dark blue clothing, make an offering of rice and flowers to a small metal icon of Shiva. The bell she rings while reciting a prayer blends enchantingly into the mix of music and voices.
A man tries to sell me a thangka, an elaborate painting on silk of the Sa?sara, or Wheel of Life. Depicting the cycles of life and rebirth in spiritually-evocative hues of scarlet, violet, and gold, the Wheel of Life is encircled by Yama, the Hindu lord of death. His pointed, piercing fangs and ravenous claws grip the wheel of Sa?sara. The painting is a dramatic representation of the contradictions – life and death, light and darkness, the beautiful and the grotesque – which underlie human existence and define our reality with their interdependence.
I contemplate the intricate details of the painting, and then stare up at the Gaijatra festivities still blossoming all around me. Suddenly, I am struck by connections between the images of the Sa?sara and the spirit of Gaijatra. The festival, embracing a celebration of life and joy while acknowledging the prevalence of death, becomes a striking enactment of the thangka. I take in the vibrant mélange of Gaijatra’s painted masks, sweet incense, and captivating music, and as I peer upward at the verdant hills and ice-encrusted mountains of Kathmandu, I feel alive, completely alive.