The Festival of Colors adorns the season of spring in north, east, and west India, and Nepal. While it is generally called Holi, and is a public holiday, it is celebrated as Basanta Utsav, or Dol, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. This is the biggest festival in the entire Indian sub-continent, transcending castes, communities, and religions to celebrate friendship and harmony. Incidentally, Mughal Emperor Akbar (1542 to 1605 CE) was the first Muslim ruler of India to play Holi with his Hindu subjects, striking a deep bond of faith and friendship with them. People smear each other, even strangers, with different colors and sprinkle colored water, with pink, red, green, and yellow being the favorites. This results in villages, towns, and whole cities turning into a canvas of bright colors during the festivities. In many parts of north India, the celebrations, including religious rituals, begin a week ahead of the first full moon in the Hindu calendar month of Phalgun. The main festival, though, is on the full moon day. Basanta Utsav has its own unique traditional charm with songs and dances playing a key role. It is one of the two main festivals celebrated at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, founded by poet-philosopher-educationist Rabindranath Tagore, India’s first Nobel laureate. During spring, with red Palash flowers in full bloom, the entire plateau landscape of Purulia acquires a bright red hue, casting an earthy romantic spell all around. The local communities traditionally celebrate the full moon night of Holi with songs and dance. Photo : A scene during the Festival of Colours Celebrating Harmony © Banglanatak dot com

Kathmandu Valley is also known as the city of temples with stupas, shrines, and statues in every nook and corner of the historic centers. Festivals and rituals unfolding throughout the year make the place even more outstanding. It would be interesting to know how most of these monuments and festivals have survived for over hundreds of years. The Newar people, or indigenous people loosely identified as those living in Kathmandu Valley, are accustomed to caste, locality, and the system of guthi. Guthi refers to social associations with objectives similar to a format of trusts that play an important role in safeguarding both tangible and intangible heritage. It is still a backbone for the continuity of most festivals, rituals, and traditional practices in Kathmandu Valley. In Nepal, every household is a member of at least one guthi formed for a specific purpose, like taking care of temples, performing mask dances, playing musical instruments, lighting butter lamps, taking care of stupas or bridges, and many more. Among many types of guthi is si guthi or sana guthi, which means being in charge of the cremation ceremony. Another example is twa guthi or the responsibility of male family members to be serve a certain function for their caste—teaching traditional musical instruments and taking care of specific temples, rituals, and festivals are exemplary functions of twa guthi. One of the important aspects of the guthi system is the land endowment for sustaining guthis. In ancient times, wherever the temples were built or whenever festivals were initiated, the land was endowed to guthi. From the revenue generated from the given land, guthis paid priests, masons, craftsmen, artists, and others. In Nepal, it was not only kings and royals who did such endowments but also regular people. There were several reasons for this. People donated land for various purposes, such as religious piety or to fulfill the obligation one’s social status affords; moreover, this was done to avoid the state confiscating the land in times of political unrest. Once it was endowed to the god, to revoke it would be considered a great sin. Due to these reasons, there were many guthis and sufficient funds to safeguard several hundred temples, festivals, and rituals. In the early phases of Nepali history, land endowments were taken by the state and rulers for their personal use; eventually repossessed lands were used to construct public buildings. The nationalization of guthi lands was a major setback to the indigenous community. Many guthis disappeared due to lack of the funds and rapid modernization of Nepal. The guthi system is not taken seriously in formal heritage conservation practices. If timely measures are not taken, then this unique practice will not survive long. Photo : The guthi belonging to farmer Kilagal community performing the mask dance called Devi Pyakha during the Yenya Punhi Festival © Monalisa Maharjan

Newars, the indigenous people of Kathmandu Valley, have a unique and sustainable way of safeguarding tangible and intangible cultural heritage through an association of people known as guthi. This ancient practice can be traced back to the fifth century CE, and it continues to have an organic link with the society and cultural heritage today. Guthi responsibilities range from simple everyday rituals to take care of temples; organize big events like chariot processions and traditional mask dances; and teach music. They also support social functions by integrating young people into a caste-based society.

The Rai communities of the eastern hills of Nepal celebrate the Siruwat festival during April and May, on the Nepali first full moon day of the year. Siruwat is celebrated to mark the season of plantation, also called dhule puja, which means worshiping the earth or soil. It is believed that the deities travel to the Himalayas after they are worshiped to avoid the summer. The festival is also called Ubhauli, referring to deities’ movement towards the upper hills/Himalayas. Every Rai household practices this ritual. Deities are offered eggs, alcohol, chicken, water, and freshly harvested rice. There is a belief that if people do not perform this ritual, they will get sick and go mad. Therefore, even people who live far away or are traveling make efforts to return to their village to perform this ritual. My family moved to Kathmandu about two decades ago, and although being five hundred kilometers away, at least one person from the family managed to go to the village every year for the ritual. This year, however, the community to which I belong was supposed to perform Siruwat on 9 May 2020 in my village. Yet, for the first time in history, many families like mine could not attend the ritual due to the nation-wide lockdown caused by the ongoing pandemic. The coronavirus has challenged the discourse of this supernatural belief. We are worried over our strongly constructed belief of the maladies connected with not performing the ritual. We ponder over questions like what would happen to our deities who are supposed to travel to the Himalayas after worshiping and whether they would wait for us until the lockdown is over to conduct the puja. Thankfully, this year we have not experienced peak summer yet. Maybe the gods are controlling nature and waiting for us to worship them. Could this be linked to the supernatural power of our gods—their control over nature and not to scientific reasons like climate change? This is an uncanny feeling for us. The deities worshiped in Siruwat are believed to be sisters, brought as a dowry by a mother and transferred to a daughter once she gets married. The god of the family is called Purkha Hangma, which means the main goddess and is worshiped inside the house, and others are called Daije, which means brought in dowry and are worshiped outside the house. Since we could not perform the ritual on time this year, we had to make ourselves promise that we would re-worship them soon, and present them all with the traditionally offered items to get their blessings. Once the travel restrictions are over, the head of my family—my father, will travel to the village and perform the ritual. This time, it would be different. Wattongs, the old generations of the community would discuss, purify the previously worshiped gods, and apologize. Then they will fix the new date and time to complete the ritual. The Covid-19 virus has challenged the fundamental aspect of honoring the journey of the deities to the Himalayas by hindering this ritual performance and has also alarmed the community against celebrating other festivals due to risks of viral transmission. Therefore, when people are adapting to their virtual presence in many activities, there is an urgent need to convince the community on finding alternative ways to perform rituals, such as doing it remotely instead of being physically present at the site. Like Siruwat, many other festivals—both communal and national, which are the cultural manifestation of communities, are under threat; re-performing or rescheduling them is a challenge, considering their complexities. photo 1 : Prepared rice for mangkok© Mohan Rai photo 2 : Preparing mangkok (rice from freshly harvested rice) and alcohol in gourd © Mohan Rai