Celebrating Tihar/Diwali

This morning, Betsy and I get up early and walked a few short blocks to the Tibetan Weavers’ Guild. We visited this place with Sam back in 1993, a month after it opened. Of course, now the complex is no longer sitting in a field but has been surrounded on all sides by other structures. There are a number of buildings here. We start with the largest building. It has many, many rug looms (rigid and upright) with carpets in various states of completion. Most looms have women sitting on the floor in front of the looms—rather backbreaking work. We watch each step of the process: wrapping different colored threads around a small metal rod placed in the shed of the warp, checking the pattern overhead to make sure each thread is the right color, removing the rod, energetically beating the knots so that they meet with the previous row, cutting the threads and, once the row is complete, changing the shed and moving on to the next row. There are up to ten rows (picks) per inch, so this is very much a laborious process. Since our visit—in an effort to put myself to sleep when the dogs bark, I’ve calculated how many knows are in a 4’ x 6’ rug: 350,000 if my math is correct. After watching the weavers, we venture to another building where we greet 20 women, middle-aged and older. They spin wool on simple spindles. I marvel at how easily they make it all seem—keeping the thread on the spindle, making the thread even, and chatting and chanting at the same time. We then visit several shops selling various trinkets, thangkas (idealized Buddhist paintings), prayer wheels, hats, sweaters, shawls and carpets. We remember Sam as a 2 year old running from one stack of carpets to the next and showing satisfaction when he managed to climb on top of each one. I ask whether I can buy yarn so that I can weave on my own but am informed the yarn isn’t for sale. In the late afternoon, despite my own challenges with a stomach bug, we walk to Durbar Square in the center of Patan. Patan, Kathmandu and Bhaktapur—the three original kingdoms of Nepal—all have their own squares filled with stupas, shrines and other buildings and monuments—many of them hundreds and hundreds of years old. The walk to Durbar Square (pronounced more like “Darbar” here) is wonderful. For weeks, young and old have been preparing for Diwali (called Tihar here), the festival of light. Marigold garlands are everywhere. Tuesday, Nepalis placed them on dogs and today they are on the cows. A loud 4 piece band (trumpet, tuba and two drums) serenades a pig’s head at the local butcher shop and children run from house to house singing songs and hoping for money or treats. There are tens of thousands of small oil lamps and colored lights here and they adorn every street and building. The closer we get to the Square, the more windy and narrow the roads. Then, a sudden opening to Durbar Square. The buzz is palpable: street children playing, adults who wish they were younger “playing” with firecrackers and fireworks, the old milling about the streets, perhaps thinking that this year’s celebration is just like last year’s celebration…and the one before that, and the one before that.

I love the artwork that adorns the sidewalk in front of each store. It starts with a layer of brown dye. On top of the dye, people “paint” simple as well as elaborate symbols with brightly colored powders. All are unique. Some have rice scattered about while others have small butter lamps in the middle. Each one is said to attract Laxmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune. Halfway through our walk around Durbar Square, the electricity fails and the whole place is reduced to a wonderful glow of candles burning everywhere. It would be a magical moment if the discotheque next to us didn’t have a back-up power supply! But both are celebrations: the raucous one with lots of people dancing and the silent one with candles placed around the temples. On the way back to the hotel, we duck through an alley and find it opens into another large square, complete with stupas, a large statue of the Buddha and a very large gate. I go home with the sting of incense in my nose and the aroma of butter lamps that mitigate the sting. The Dalai Lama once coined a thought that I find particularly true: "People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost."