Tij

Tij (pronounced Teej) is the festival of women, and occurred on Sept. 2nd. Teej is a Hindu festival where women get together to pray for blessing (mostly for their husbands) and celebrate. Married women return home to their mother's house for a few days, and everyone wears special red clothing for the singing and dancing that ensues. To celebrate Tij at the hospital, a party was organized for all the patients one day, and for the female staff a bit later.

The patient party was good fun, and was basically an excuse for everyone (both genders) to get together to sing, play music and dance. They made their own music, and several of the women danced. Then more people got dragged into it – including me. It was good fun, with much laughter.


The party on Sunday was a bit more organized. Everyone dressed up, and it gave me an opportunity to wear the sari I bought in India. It is pink instead of red, but was close enough, and everyone was excited to see me in a sari. (I got help from one of the staff to get my sari on correctly). We ate kir (a bit like rice pudding, with yummy bits of spices and coconut included), and curried vegetables – the traditional Tij food. We had music and dancing as well, and there was no getting out of joining the dancing this time. I've not really got Nepali dancing figured out, but it seems the most important requirement is that you take part, so I managed ok. Later, a couple of the male staff were called to bring us better speakers for our stereo, and when they did, they got pulled into the dancing as well, much to their embarrassment. The patients all wanted to see as well, and by the end of the afternoon, we had everyone in the physio hall dancing and enjoying the party. I've posted a lot of pictures and a few videos of the dancing, if you'd like to see more.