With the changing times, the festival celebrations are changing throughout the world. And so is the state of ancient festivals that are on the verge of vanishing. But thanks to few enthusiasts, they are keeping the tradition live!
I am talking about Shama Chakeva, an important festival reminding the dedicated brother-sister relationship that was celebrated widely in the southern plains of Nepal both by the Tharus and the Maithils.
This year, however, I was lucky to observe the little girls celebrating this festival.
Here’s how the Shama Chakeva festival is celebrated.
The sisters make clay statuettes of Shama, Chakeva, Sathbhainya, Chugla and a dog among others (characters mentioned in the story of Shama Chakeva).
Clay statuettes of Shama, Chakeva, Satbhainya among others.
Every night, they put the statuettes in a nicely decorated bamboo basket, put the basket on their heads and sing songs blessing their brothers and abusing the wicked Chugla. They gather at different houses and sing these songs till the full moon day.
Girls carrying their clay statuettes in bamboo baskets and women singing songs of Shama Chakeva.
Taking the Shama Chakeva to nearby pond.
The next day, their brothers help build small temple like floating baskets. Then the brothers and sisters gather on the bank of a pond and put the statuettes in the floating baskets after worshipping them and offering ‘prasad’ to them.
Displaying the clay idols on the bank of pond before offering prasad to them.
Displaying the clay idols on the bank of pond before offering prasad to them.
A little girl doing her final pooja before immersing the idols into water.
The statuettes are finally immersed into water. The children burn the moustache of Chugla and break the idol into pieces so as to punish the wicked Chugla.
Interestingly, the migratory birds start descending from Siberia and far-off places to the terai from November. And among them are the ruddy shelduck called chakheva!
Can you relate this with the Shama Chakeva being celebrated in November and Shama and Charudatta turning into birds?
As Tharus embrace modernisation, many of their traditions are vanishing. And if not preserved on time, the young Tharus won’t even get to know about them!
Here’s one of the traditions of painting ‘Dain Jogin’ – an evil eye on the first day of Dashami in Eastern Nepal.
A photo posted by Sanjib Kumar Chaudhary (@sankuchy) on
The pod of the plant that is used to create the red and white pattern is called ‘sakhari bakhari’ in local Tharu language. Thanks for identifying it @shankarian!
