Namaste 🙏
Hope you are doing great!!!
From the day I am back home, there are a lot of things happening around me. The biggest of them was this cultural event that took place in my village yesterday. This event happens once a year at this no moon night and it has a great cultural significance.
It happens every year at my village ground near Mata Devi Singhasani Temple at Baragran village. And people from all over the village, gather there for this cultural ceremony. Apart from that people from other villages, also come here to witness this programme.
So the gathering starts around evening time, and the main event starts after sunset. People light up a fire in the middle of the ground and there are multiple bonfires around the ground for people to get warm as it’s winter time here in Himalayas and it gets too cold in evening time. You can see that in the photographs above.
Let me tell you the reason why this cultural festival is celebrated. So it is believed that this month is considered dark month, according to local mythology. In this darkest month, the darkest night is the moon last night that was last night. So it is believed that on this darkest night, the negative energies are at the strongest and they can impact the village in negative way.
To avoid this situation, this ceremony is done. In this ceremony, the local deity of this village bless the people of the village by their presence. You can see the photograph of Mata Devi Singhsani in the photographs above and below.
After the Deity takes a few rounds of the village ground, where everyone is sitting or standing now, it’s time for the main ceremony. The drums and horns are playing in a tribal fashion. The vibe is completely different and there is a kind of supernatural power in between the crowds. You can feel that when you are standing there.
Now it’s time for the main ceremony. In the main ceremony one person is made to sit on a wooden log, and a couple of people carry him on that wooden log that person signifies the bad vibes or bad spirits. Whole village people see that person as evil or bad, and after taking a few rounds of the ceremonial ground that person is carried over that wouldn’t log to the end of the village and while carrying him, everyone who is taking part in the ceremony, says bad words. That is done to show the evil spirits or bad vibrations how weak they are and it also signifies the winning of good or bad.
In the photograph below, you can see that person he is sitting on a wooden log and there are people all around him. There are people carrying him and he is roaming around in the whole ceremonial ground.
I have marked that person with red arrows for your convenience.
While he is being carried on that wooden log, there is a different kind of vibe in the whole village. The ceremonial drums are playing and horns are blowing. Everyone is fully engaged in this activity.
As already mentioned, there is fire around in multiple places to keep people warm in this cold weather. The temperature now even drop to below zero, so it is the must have thing.
I tried to capture the ceremony from all direction for you guys, as you can see for better understanding. You can see how many people are gathered there and how much excitement is in the environment right now.
After taking a few rounds of the ceremonial ground, all the people they go to the way that leads us to the outside of the village and they drop that person there. It’s not like they throw in there. It’s just like they symbolically do it.
In the photograph below, you can see, everyone is getting out of the ceremonial ground and taking that person out of the village to signify the strongness of the good over bad.
When people are done with this activities, there is one other activity that goes on here. I was not able to capture the photographs of that activity because there was too much crowd at that time and I was standing in the middle. So what happens is there are two teams from two villages. One is this village and another one is the neighbouring village and there is one race that in between these two villages or the teams of these two villages, to be more precise. And which ever team wins the race, it is believe that more prosperity comes into that village.
I’m grateful that I get to see the ancient activities like this happening nowadays in the middle of the technology and the modernisation that’s happening. I take real pride in knowing about these activities and our culture, and I think that everyone should preserve their culture for the future generations.
That’s all for today.
Thanks for passing by.
Peace ☮️
