Ode to the Festivals

Nothing warms our hearts like seeing lights draped around the house or a tree. I believe seeing sparkly lights in the darkness makes us happier and cheerful. It must be because our ancestors sat around at night and observed stars in the crispy night sky for thousands of years. Lately to be festive and to be “efficient”, I have been putting up the lights around my house before Dashain until New Year’s Day weekend. It covers all the holidays.

Now that Dashain and Tihar celebrations have been completed for the 38th time for me this year, I am eagerly waiting for the festivities of my adopted home. Since I first arrived in the USA in 2006, I started to enjoy the American holidays with friends in college. Now with two kids and an American spouse, these holidays have taken a different meaning. It brings even more joy to see kids soaking in the wonders of these festivals. As an immigrant, it has forced me to reflect on our traditions and what it means to be here as a supplant that arrived as a 19 year old. At this point, I am realizing that there is beauty to getting to celebrate both worlds. Especially during these times of global political and cultural storm towards rightwing ideology, the idea of incorporating two different cultures and the festivals that come with them becomes even more essential in my household. I don’t want this to be mistaken as an act of defiance, but just a reflection of personal viewpoint.

Festivals are like whole worlds themselves, in my opinion. They provide pockets of time where people lose inhibitions and go into carpe diem. Work especially becomes a drag. Who wants to punch in, when all we are thinking about is our travel plans, what food to make, what booze to get, what fun we can have? Work doesn’t belong in this pocket. This is pretty evident in both Nepal and the USA. During the festivals of Dashain and Tihar, the whole country of Nepal becomes a beautiful chaos. Offices and schools shut down for a month, then the stores go into hyper mode. Kids and adults go into play mode. People lose all inhibitions and buy buy buy! In the USA, although I wish the offices and schools closed for a month, we can just sense Americans entering the beautiful chaos as well during the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. In fact, people want it so badly that they start blasting Mariah Carey’s eternal hit “All I Want For Christmas is You” in stores and offices even before Halloween in late October, sometimes right after Labor Day in late September. It’s a two-month long play at the very least. Now in our household, it’s a FOUR-MONTH long playtime with Nepali and American holidays combined. I, personally, love this pocket of time. My other pocket, the monetary one however, probably curses me.

Perhaps the most chaotic part of festivals is cooking. Somehow, the son-in-law is always in front of the kitchen drawer that the mother-in-law is trying to open. I am convinced that this has been a quintessential part of festivals everywhere. There is no holiday cooking without some accidents as well. It could be anything from an alarm going off from unattended ovens to kids running around and knocking off rotis from nanglos. I am not sure how, but it all comes together in the end, where we gather around with family and friends and enjoy all the festive rotis (sweet breads), achar (pickles), khasi ko maasu (mutton), Turkey, stuffing, candied sweet potatoes, green beans, and my all-time favorite Cranberry sauce (even if it is from a can). An ode must be extended to booze in this whole process as well for being a part and sometimes a cause of this beautiful chaos. It is important to note that this must be done in moderation to not turn it into actual chaos, however.

sel-roti

Personally, in the spirit of the holidays, I finally solved the puzzle of making sel-roti in a non-deconstructed form and without burning my arms from splattering scalding hot oil. After 10 years of trying, I finally realized that all it took was a little more patience, a little more ghee and the oil to be a little hotter. I take this as my greatest accomplishment of 2024 and thank this Tihar for teaching me a lesson on patience and perseverance because my first nine attempts were terrible.

Amid the commotion of shopping and cooking, festivals also bring a level of tranquility that is not always present in our everyday lives. I believe this sense comes from associating moments with our childhood. We just want to be kids and live in the present again. Adulthood is filled with assessment of our past and planning of the future. It is filled with waking up and repeating the routine. As much as we like to create a routine for ourselves, we also tend to look to break it. We start finding dullness in our routine and ways to escape it in the form of hobbies or addictions. The festivals give us the best reason to break out of this routine each year. It is the most innocent, social and maybe the most human way of escaping the ordinariness of our days. It is filled with unpredictability as well. We may come across family and friends that we might not have seen for ages. We may sit at a dinner table or while playing cards and come across political ramblings or grievances that might raise some eyebrows. This usually occurs after a few cold ones or glasses of wine. Either way, it is a way of letting go of the everyday routine and entering this pocket of time together.

As we say goodbye to the Nepali holidays of Dashain and Tihar, we will be welcoming the American holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas with some travelling, feasting and standing in front of the kitchen drawers with a cold one in my hand while my mother-in-law tries to find that enigmatic spatula.

Sparks