Holi: The festival of colors

The festival of colors - Holi - is a widely celebrated festival in Nepal. It is significant for all the Hindu devotees. It is held during the full moon day in the Hindu calendar month of Falgun (mid-March). Hence, the celebration of the Holi Festival in Nepal marks the end of the winter and the arrival of spring. People celebrate Holi by gathering with friends and family, smearing colors on each other, playing music and splashing water on each other. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic which started in early 2020, this amazing festival of Holi was badly affected. With COVID cases coming to an end, there hope for a bright future and this year Holi will be celebrated with great excitement in all parts of Nepal. In Kathmandu, tourists enjoy the Holi celebrations in the major tourist spots - Thamel, Kathmandu Durbar Square, Chhetrapati, and Tundikhel. Shopkeepers and street vendors have started selling Holi t-shirts and water gun toys as well

Chir symbolic representation of festival's start Photo: Binaya Rajopadhyay/NepalNews

Holi begins with the installation of Chir, a bamboo pole decorated with pieces of colorful clothes, at Hanumandhoka in Basantapur. Locals and priests erect the Chir every year on Falgun Shukla Astami, which is a symbolic representation of the festival's start. The Manandhars have been erecting the Chir as part of their tradition. They bring a 32-foot long and 6-inch thick bamboo pole from a forest near the Kathmandu Valley with the help of the Nepal Army. The Chir is believed to be a symbol of prosperity, and, if anything happens to it, it is believed that some disaster will follow. The Chir is hauled down on the seventh day, and burned in Tundikhel, to mark the end of the festival for the year.