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Shiva Raatri - Pokhara, Nepal

Pub Date：2008-03-08 23:00:00 Author: Click:14 Category: earthquakes

Pokhara, Nepal

The main event this week has been the Hindu festival Shiva Raatri on Thursday, a celebration of the God Shiva. It certainly trumps any religious festival back home for fun, excitement and general atmosphere. While the biggest event took place at a prominent holy site near Kathmandu, celebrations take place in any Hindu area.

Shiva Raatri is centred around a large bonfire, in our case next to the main road in to Pokhara. We watched it being built earlier in the day.

The main source of entertainment, certainly for the local children (of all ages!), was making loud and spectacular explosions by heating lengths of sugar cane in the inferno before drawing them out and smashing the hot end against the road. Incredibly this creates a fantastic bang and often the end of the sugar cane fragments into several pieces that are propelled high into the air, to fall back to earth like fiery comets, often onto the heads of innocent by-standers! This was made all the more entertaining by the sheer abandon with which people went about it: tiny children running through the crowds, their bright hot cane wildly swinging about their heads, simply to smash it into the ground often at the feet of unnerved onlookers! I bet this would be a great success back home, but I hardly think our health and safety law-makers would allow it. I'm still tempted to look into the import of sugar cane from Nepal: bring joy to British children and assist the stagnant Nepali export-economy in one swoop...!

As well as all this going on there were the more expected activities. A large group behind the fire were engaged in singing and rather manic dancing, accompanied by some tambourines and some kind of repetitive religious dance-music. It is also a traditional custom to smoke - often Marijuana - on Shiva Raatri as it is believed to help the mind communicate with Shiva. Certainly some of the revellers were apparently still firm believers in this aspect of the day. Many Hindu holy-men (Sadhus) regularly smoke for this same reason. There was an amusing article in the gossip section of the Himalayan Times which featured different celebrities' takes on the matter. Several t.v. actors admitted to enjoying a spliff or two on Shivaraatri, while others weren't too bothered! Interesting to see a different cultural take on the whole matter compared to the U.K.'s.

Otherwise, this week has been taken up with our teaching activity at the local Paramount Public School - one of the many private schools in Nepal. While we have been given a lot more responsibility than we expected (i.e. free reign over 3 or 4 classes a day) I've enjoyed it a lot. The children vary in age from 9 to 16 and classes are based on ability rather than age which means some of our classes have had age ranges of 3 or 4 years. The kids are almost all very enthusiastic and have surprisingly good English, indeed all their classes are taught in English, with only Nepali being the exception. The principle, Mr. Gurung, told us that this often means that the standard of the Nepali is actually pretty low...rather ironic!

One of the best aspects has been long chats with Mr. Gurung and his wife over lunch, fielding questions about life in the U.K. and asking many of our own. Mr. Gurung is the only of his brothers and sisters left in Nepal - they are all in the U.K. and one is even a Gurkha stationed in Aldershot. One of the most insighful things we talked about was the Nepali political situation and the rather shocking the fact that Maoists occasionally more-or-less blackmail the school for money due to their stance against anything privatised. This obviously worries the principle and his wife greatly as it has not been unknown for school staff to be threatened or even killed if payment is not forthcoming. This really shattered my previous image of the Maoist party as an increasingly democratic and lawful organisation. It is quite frightening to think that they may soon have a position of legitimate power in the national government.

Well that's about it for now. Tomorrow we are off on a 11 day trek which culminates in a natural amphitheater of 7- and 8000 metre-plus mountains called "The Sanctuary". Should be great!

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