Literally Cow Festival, this is an eight-day jovial festival. Everything that creates joy and laughter is part of the highlights of the festival to dance, sing, pantomime. On the festival’s first day, individuals whose family members died in a year-round parade of a decorated cow around the town dressed as cows or hermits together with their young ones.
In their trip into the afterworld, the sacred animal helps departed souls cross the cosmic ocean. Family members join the cow procession to guarantee their loved ones ‘ smooth passage because the afterworld doors are only open on this day.
Gai Jatra considers the streets of three Valley towns packed with musical bands, kids in cow-like costumes, and cows gaily decorated with colourful paper fans attached to their horns and flowers ‘ garlands around their necks. People are standing at the intersection offering participants sweets and beverages. The Durbar Sqaure crosses the festival path in Kathmandu, so this is a nice location to watch these festivals.
To cheer the bereaved families, humorous and satirical affairs are held. There are road events and stage shows that make public representatives fun and some individuals come dressed up like lunatics to make individuals laugh around the town. In Nepal’s pre-democracy days, newspapers were allowed to criticize the government’s functioning only on this particular day.
The bereaved families in Kathmandu continue separately along the festival path. All the participants gather at the Durbar Square in Patan first and then move out together. But the most interesting is the festival in Bhaktapur. Tall bamboo contraptions are held around the town in memory of the dead, wrapped in cloth and covered with horns shaped with straw. Palanquins are also paraded around with clay cow figures. During this festival, one of the main attractions are processions of strangely composed Ghintang-gishi dancers gyrating to the rhythm of boisterous music. In all other hill cities in Nepal, where there are big Newar communities, Gai Jatra is also celebrated.
SAPARU THE HOLY COWS FESTIVALS-STORY
When King Pratap Malla lost his son Chakravatendra Malla, a young prince, the reigning king’s beloved and queen, died in 1666 AD. The lad’s death is so pathetic that for the king it was no less than a thunder. The tragedy is hard hit, the queen refrains from eating and drinking. She was so grieved that she even forgot to smile. Neither works of remedy nor anyone can console her. The king falls in a position of embarrassment. He tries all possible means to solace his wife but none works. He resolves to attempt a fresh experiment, tired of all prior measures.
In his principality, he commands all those families who have lost family members in the past year, to come out to his queen that she was not the only bereft, nor was her son the only man to leave the world. The bereaved families were accompanied by frolicking clowns and, together with them, smiles went back to the queen’s dry lips and their well-wishers.
Over centuries later, the 17th century parade called King Pratap Malla of Kathmandu to console his queen developed into an annual case that required all the bereaved families in his principality to walk around the town with a cow, or a girl or boy dressed like the sacred animal. The cow’s supposed to assist the lost soul get in; it’d have to wait another year!
The festival lasts eight days, and throughout these days, revelers parade around the prescribed path in outlandish clothes, caricaturing and ridiculing corrupt public figure practices. Gaijatra editions are published by magazines and newspapers at the most colourful and funny celebrations, but the most enchanting of them all can be seen in Bhaktapur.
Covered with colourful and painted images of cows symbolizing the dead, bamboo structures crowded the streets in Bhaktapur on the saparu day.
The construction of bamboo is such that it is easy to determine whether the dead were male or female or a minor. Apparently adding humor to the festival’s dark element, distinct groups of individuals are going around, challenging sticks and caricaturing at various activities and characters. Visitors can see and enjoy masked dances and humor and satire programs at various government areas and old city squares throughout the week.
