Shrinking Life of a Festival

Our family split like amoebas and we became five small families. Some continued to live in Patan while my grandmother, now widowed decided to cross the river and start anew in a new city. By the time I arrived, several decades later, our family had grown into quite a formidable number. My mathematics places me as the 74th member had we continued to be counted as one family.

 

Though we were five satellite families, one tradition never changed. It was Dashain. The big fat newari Dashain, in the old family house where my grandmother had her five children and lived with four stepchildren. Without fail, for the five days of Dashain our family converged at the Patan ghar and celebrated Dashain, raising their salinchas filled with bitter home made aila (rice wine) to the spirit of our family.

 

Five days of Dashain, Ghatasthapana, Astami, Nawami, Dashami and Chaturdaasi –everyone, young and old, dressed in new clothes arrived in the old house without fail to celebrate this all family festival. The daughters-in-law of each of the five families cooked sumptuous food, the elderly generation took ages doing puja in a dark room where no strangers were allowed in while the men of the family played cards and laughed in the baithak. As for us, we would be busy running around the entire stretch of the two courtyards playing with cousins we only met once in a year. As for me, I enjoyed playing a game with myself, remembering all the names of innumerable relatives.

 

This tradition continued for few decades. Like everything else in the world, our little Dashain had to turn a new leaf and it happened in the hands of my sister-in-law. Few months before Dashain when she married into our family, the family’s official keeper of rules decided that she is not fit to enter our family as caste of one of her great grandfathers’ was an issue. In order to avoid causing any family feuds, no one contested the decision. She became a part of our family but she was not welcomed with fanfare into the old house. God-fearing clan of ours sat quiet.

 

So, Dashain changed again. One family stopped going to the old house to celebrate. Our satellite family had grown bigger by then- my father and his brother and their children. We recreated the old rituals at our home. We continued to play cards, the women of the family kept on slogging in the kitchen and my grand mother performed elaborate pujas. The five children of the family played in their new clothes.

 

The initial overpowering feeling of being banished from the family home turned into one of exile of our own choosing. My grandmother told me that my cousin’s wedding was just a bait that we decided to bite on. Everyone has been growing tired over the years to make an effort to go to the old house for years and she just came at the right time to change few things around for the family. Dashain changed again when my grandmother passed away six years ago. The amoebas split again and became two small families.

 

Dashian kept on shrinking and we kept adjusting to it.