Tihar Festival Is About To Arrive.

It is one of the two major festivals in Nepal. Tihar is kind of hindu version of Christmas. It is celebrated 4 to 5 days. Why is it celebrated so joyfully is kinda hard to explain but this is obviously one of my favourite festivals. In India it is celebrated as Diwali (In Nepal “Deepawali”) to celebrate victory of Ram (‘Good/Righteous’) over Raavan(‘Evil/Unrighteousn’). But in Nepal it is much more than that.First day is ‘Kaag Tihar’( Kinda Crow’s day). They are considered to be messengers. Crows are by nature keen observers ( often considered most clever of all birds ), they know earthquake quicker than any other birds and start “Cawing”.Second day is called ‘Kukur Tihar’ (Kinda Dog’s day). Dogs symbolize friendship and loyalty. They also protect human property and cattles from theft and wild animals.Third or forth day are Gobardhan Puja and Gai Puja. ‘Gobar’ means ‘Cowdung’ and ‘Gobardhan’ is the name of mountain that Lord Krishna lifted to protect the villagers from angry King of gods ‘Indra’ from torrential rain that he caused. Worshipping Gobardhan is believed to have begun from that incident. Another reason is Cowdung is a good source of manure to farmers as well.‘Gai Puja’ means ‘Cow Worship’. As a child when I used to inquire ‘Why we worship cows?’. I was always told “Because she represents Laxmi, the goddess of wealth and fortune. Where she is not given proper respect is always prevailed by ‘Daridrata’(Poverty and sadness)”. So ‘Gai Puja’ is also known as ‘Laxmi Puja’. Goddess Laxmi is worshipped in the evening. We address cow as ‘Gau Mata’(‘Gau’= ‘Cow’ and ‘Mata’= ‘Mother’).Laxmi Puja is the most celebrated ‘festival of Light’. Houses are decorated with flashing lights, candles, etc and banana trees are erected in front of all houses. Womens and Girls sing ‘Bhailo song’ from house to house. From song it is also clear that this day of celebration is also about ‘Vaaman Avatar’ of Lord Vishnu defeating and blessing King Bali.Final day is “Bhai Tika”(Kinda Brother’s day). Brother sister relationship is emphasised this day. Many times I was told a story about how a sister cleverly saved her brother’s life when Yama, the king of death became ready to grant her any boon except her brother’s Life. She outwitted him :) . This is also the day when men and boys sing “Dheusi song” house to house.So there is no single reason that we celebrate tihar but a bunch of them & I may have missed some.Hope it helps!!!

Thank you for the A2A.Dashain and Tihar (or as Indians refer to it as Dussera and Diwali) is the most popular festival in Nepal.As majority of the population are practicing Hindus, and as tradition has it, Nepal practices close to a month long festivities on this festival. Banks are shut, schools are shut and offices are required to have 2 week + 3 days holiday. Other popular festivals are Buddha Jayanti, Krishna Janmasthami, Shivaratri, Holi etc, but the answer to your question remains Dashain and Tihar.

The eight-day long Indra Jatra festival falls in September and is one of the most exciting and revered festivals of the Newari community of the Kathmandu Valley.Dashain Festival is the longest and most favorite festival of Nepal. Dashain falls in the bright lunar fortnight of October and ends on the full moon day. First nine days are celebrated with Tantric rituals worshiping nine different aspects of ‘Durga’ (mother goddess).The five-day festival of lights, known as Tihar honors Yama, the God of Death, meanwhile the worship of Laxmi, the Goddess of Wealth dominates the festivities. On the first day Kaag Tihar, is the day of the crow, the informant of Yama is worshipped. The second day Kukur Tihar is for worshipping the dogs as the agents of Yama. On the third day is Gai Tihar and Laxmi Puja. On this day cow is offered prayers and food in the morning, and Goddess Laxmi is offered elaborate prayers and puja in the evening.

To know when to show up, you need to ask yourself some questions -Is there an opening act? Do you want to see them? : if you do, I recommend being at the venue within an hour before the main act comes on. They usually take up that time frame to let the main performers get ready.Where’s the venue? Is parking a hassle?: usually with big performances, come even bigger venues, which hold more people and have even more traffic. So not wanting to get stuck in the mentioned traffic, I recommend an hour to the main performance as well because people lag and are late. It’s only human nature. But you, and a bunch of other super fans who absolutely cannot wait, can rise above and get there before the crowd. (Also: if you’re parking. Make sure, if the venue has you pay for parking in advance. Pay.) ((However; a helpful recommendation/tip from me is to have someone drop you off at the concert and pick you up. You avoid the struggle of finding parking and you’re in there within minutes. Same for you’re out of there in seconds and can just avoid the parking lot in general with a bit of walking)If you don’t really care about who’s opening for them (and at times there aren’t) what time does the actual artist/band usually come on to do their set?: i recommend looking at past concerts/tour stops to be sure, and making sure you’re there at least a half hour before the main act starts because you want to be able to have found your seat, got parking, actually made it inside and even if you want to buy something like a shirt or a drink (the lines are long but getting closer to when the set starts, the line will be shorter. Just a little helpful hint from me to you. If you hear screaming, run (well not really that’s a safety hazard) to your seats.My best recommendation - if you can, and don’t want to be late, be there an hour or 45 minutes early. They’ll be letting people in by then and really, worse thing that’ll happen is you’ll have to wait some time until the actual concert starts. Though it’s not a problem and definitely worth it, because you can have time to buy things, hang out, take some pictures etc…