To every Nepali who is also a Hindu, Dashain sure is a biggest days of our calendar and the best part of Dashain is that it comes with so many holidays with it. When I was young child I like all enjoyed every bit of it. Do I have to say what I loved most as a child ? undoubtedly it was long school holidays, the lovely beautiful sunny days were the bonus that came with it and school off not only for couple of days but for almost fifteen days sure added our fun moment. At this point I really want to forget the homework parts which were loaded to us.
But one of the biggest minus point of Dashain is its a family festival and you must have your family members around you to celebrate this festival to the fullest. With its all good good sides, its biggest flaw is that it reminds people like me, who you have and who you don't have. Where you can go to celebrate it, in this day and how to spend it with them. All the excitement of it used to vanished when the plan for the big day came close, its like a someone pouring a cold water on your face. Especially, when the truth was that we were living in Bal Mandir. Good news is not having any relatives were not much of the problems except only when there were festivals like dashian came close by.
Normally, during dashain or Tihar some of the girls and boys used to get a chance to visit their close relatives and stay with them for more than a week during dashain. Bal Mandir also used to look like the streets of Kathmandu which wore a thin look. But the fun part was I never paid much attention to the fact that who left and who did not. I was not in that list of people who ever got opportunity to leave Bal Mandir to spend festival time with close relatives.
Usually the big gate of Bal Mandir used to remain closed tightly for all the children who lived inside it, but during big day of dashain it remained open for all those who came in and who wanted to go out to spend the day. This is one day the management used to let us go out from the Bal Mandir, without fearing that we might runway on that day. But the problem was where to go and how to spend that - almost - whole day. Children whose relatives could not keep their child for a week long also used to welcome them for a day, but not all the one who were in Bal Mandir used to have relatives in town.
Junkiri one of my class mate always used to plan for a movie every year and the movie hall used to be Jai Nepal mostly and if not it used to be Kumari hall that was so close by the Bal Mandir. It was surprising that she always used to manage to have the news on the new movie that was running and be on the hall to watch a movie on the Day of Dashian. It was her way of treating herself with not having the close one around. As I told you before also, with so many people around it was not the problem but on the big day the feeling of not having loved ones just crept in without even feeling so. However, I was not that much fan of movie not that strong smelly toilet which used to make it unbearable even during watching movie, it still have power to haunt me even today, when the hall has got the new face lift long time back.
There used to be some boys who used to go out on the off day and return back with lots of kites. I have not read that book yet. You can use your wild imagination to guess the outsiders used to watch them and figure it out so easily that they were from Bal Mandir. Some children do have the habit of leaving their blueprints wherever they go. The book which has the name of kite runner always reminds of of those boys from my childhood memories. One day I might read this book to see whether their story is any different that those kite runners who were part of my childhood life.
As for me, most of the time I used to go to one of the staff’s home. But there was also times I used to got to movie also despite my lack of taste in movies. However it really took me long time to realize that dashain is all about spending time with family members. I know her for really long time but one truth can never be changed she is not my family member. So suddenly one day I stopped visiting her [ anyone even to take Tika] during dashain.
I stay home and then watch all the good movies that comes on my TV screen with the delicacies I make fro me which really makes my mood.
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