BHIM DUTTA, NEPAL – For 360 days of the year, Radhika Bhatta, 43, says she doesn’t have any time for herself. A housewife in Bhim dutta, a municipality in Nepal’s Far-Western region, Bhatta spends nearly every day doing household chores like most women in this rural area.
She says she works hard from dawn until dusk. Women here are responsible for cooking, cleaning, collecting firewood, performing farm chores, rearing livestock, and caring for their children, husbands and elders.
"It’s just these five days that we’re free."
But during the five days of Gaura Parva, a festival for married women that has its roots in Nepal’s Far-Western region, there is a moment of relief. Bhatta and other wives get a break from their daily chores to celebrate the festival meant just for them.
“It’s just these five days that we’re free,” a jovial Bhatta says.
Bhatta says the married women look forward to the festival all year.
“We have to celebrate the Gaura Parva,” she says. “We have to have fun.”
Gaura Parva consists of five days of fasting and celebrating in the name of a Hindu goddess. Women and cultural experts say it’s the one festival that is just for married women and their only time of year to relax. Originally an indigenous festival, Gaura Parva has expanded to link women across castes, across the country and across the border with India.
People in Nepal’s Far-Western region and areas in India that share a border with Nepal, like Kumaon and Gadwal, mainly celebrate this festival. There is little evidence about the beginning of this festival, but Hindu texts mention the festival’s existence since the mythological era.
“This is a religious tradition that has existed since ages,” says Jyotish Acharya Ghanashyam Lekhak, associate professor at Sharada Campus, which is affiliated with Mahendra Sanskrit University.
According to legends, Hindu gods fought against demons to get the nectar from the ocean that made them immortal. As the demons proved stronger and the gods were losing their grip, Lord Vishnu, one of the gods, transformed himself into the female figure of Mohini and tricked the demons into surrendering the nectar. Mohini then gave the nectar to the gods to make them immortal, which many say Gaura Parva commemorates.
Motilal Paneru, professor and former campus chief of the same college as Lekhak, says that married women celebrate Gaura Parva for another reason. He says that because the Hindu god Shiva was devastated after the death of his first wife, Sati Devi, she was reborn as Gauri. As Gauri began to pray that Shiva would become her husband, she started fasting. She accomplished her mission on the fifth day, and that’s why the day is celebrated in the form of Gaura, when married women fast for five days.
Every year, women mainly in Nepal’s Far-Western region observe this festival for five days in either August or September, depending on the lunar calendar.
During the first day of the event, women soak wheat, black lentils, peas, brown lentils and rhododendron flowers. The following day, the women clean the soaked ingredients, called “biruda,” in a nearby water spout. They then use paddy plants to erect a figure of Gaura Devi, the goddess worshipped during this festival, and wrap a red cloth around it.
On the third day, the women bring Gaura Devi’s figure into their households in a celebratory atmosphere. On the fourth day, the women offer the biruda to the goddess. This is the most important day of the festival.
