I made haste – on foot - for Pashupatinath Temple, my stride fastening with every step, the women in red before me quick and nimble. As they bounded across the dusty road, moving away from the city’s tourist hub, their strides long and proud and hair elaborately dressed in jewels and fabric, the charcoal sky cracked letting through a glimmer of the golden orb’s radiance.
Desperate to arrive in time to experience Teej Festival and see the temple cloaked in red-vibrancy, a fracture in the earth’s surface manifested - disguised in like colour to the wet dirt road - sinking my left leg knee deep in mud.
Unabashedly washing off the impurity with a bottle of mineral water – head held high, I modestly walked forward, watching my step, and let the visual spectacular pique my curiosity: as far as I could see, women – adorned in red and similarly hued sari-dynamism - snaked their way through the streets, creating a kaleidoscope of unrestrained brilliance on the otherwise inclement day in Kathmandu.
What Is Teej, and How Is It Celebrated?
I’d been fortunate to arrive in Kathmandu, the city of dreams surrounded eternally by mountains, a week before the commencement of the nationally celebrated – and internationally recognised - Hindu Teej Festival. However, I’d not been privy to festival details until a day before its conclusion.
Fortunately, the final day was to be the biggest and most spectacular of the four-day-long celebration, the city’s streets set to flood with women bedecked in jewels and adorned in various hues of red.
I’d set out late from Thamel, camera in tow, to capture the essence of the festival and associated rituals.
Named after a red insect that emerges courageously from the soil throughout the scaturient monsoon season from June through August, Teej is a Nepalese Hindu festival; it is, strictly, female only. Local lore asserts that women fast, then feast, all ritual associated with Hindu beliefs.
By participating, devotees pay credence to Goddess Parvati and her association to Shiva. Despite its ostensibly oestrogen-fuelled origins, men form part of the underlying philosophy: aside from purification of the female body and soul, the goal of the celebration is to ensure marital-cum-familial bliss and longevity.
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What Happens at Temples During Teej?
As I, dressed inappropriately in black, merged with the human traffic and weaved my way through the sea of red fabric, angelic voices emerged from the crowd as dancers - hips and bodies swaying rhythmically to folk beats - ejected radiant smiles into the crowd from the pavement. I’d been unintentionally swept into the heart of the celebration, the soul unequivocally shaking to the electricity of human energy pulsing through the crowd.
My eyes were fixed: while the smorgasbord of red bodies moved energetically towards the temple entrance, the temples of others were being decorated with bindi, the red dot worn between the eyes symbolic of the chakra - the seat of concealed wisdom. So many were the women in the street that I was barely able to see the sodden earth upon which our variegated sandals were pounding.
Once inside, they moved in multiple directions: some kneeled before Hindu statues then prostrated themselves in veneration of deities, others sat amid tranquil surroundings to meditate, while the rest performed worship by the river or simply danced uninhibitedly among friends.
Although I’m not Hindu and I’m wholly unfamiliar with associated ritualistic worship, through their conduct and demeanour on the day, I was able to appreciate the importance spirituality has in promoting peacefulness and human kindness. Mothers helped sisters who assisted grandmothers, older women unable to support themselves, while nieces carried baby girls as mothers busily attended to aunties who were paying to have everyone’s hands decorated.
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After a dead body (covered illustriously in orange fabric) had been cleaned ceremoniously in the river and cremated - surrounded by family and friends - on a pyre, I retreated from the temple and weaved my way home along dirt roads through Kathmandu’s myriad of concrete buildings. As the rain pounded on my poncho-covered head, a sense of warmth washed through me: the red blood pulsing through my arteries and veins, although life-sustaining, could never induce a comparable multi-sensorial pleasure the red sari-dynamism of Teej had in my beating heart and soul.
Where to See and Experience Teej Festival Festivities in Kathmandu?
According to locals to whom I spoke regarding Teej, the two most prominent sites at which to holistically experience the annual celebration are:
- Pashupatinath Temple, and
- Kathmandu Durbar Square, the former royal palace.
Things to Consider
Are you interested in witnessing Kathmandu’s streets explode into a palette of red? If so, then consider the following points:
- The festival is celebrated on a different date each year (usually in August or September), nominated accordingly by the Nepali lunar calendar. Check this website for further information.
- As Teej usually occurs during or at the end of monsoon, appropriate attire – if visiting – will be required. Footwear, in particular, should be given particular attention as most roads within Kathmandu are dirt, which quickly deteriorate into mud with a little downpour.
- It is appropriate for men to attend the celebration, as observers. I did not see local Hindu men participating in festivities, aside from those painting the bindi on women’s heads.
- I personally avoid taking photographs, mostly, without first asking permission. The same rule applies at Teej. Although Nepalese women are softly-spoken and at times passive and shy, making it easy to ‘take advantage’ of an ideal photographic opportunity, I made a point of asking their permission before sticking my lens in their elaborately decorated faces. It wasn’t always possible, as the crowd was dense and I often inadvertently caught multiple faces, but I tried to be courteous.
- Remember to wear appropriate attire if you plan to enter the temple. Bare shoulders and shorts above the knee are generally not considered acceptable.
Further Information
