KASKI, Jan 19: The Daai, or traditional way of threshing paddy, is marked as a festival in Pokhara starting today.
The festival has been organized to introduce the traditional way of threshing the paddy to the new generation and visiting tourists.
Pokhara Street Festival begins (photo feature)
The host, Pokhara Tourism Council, believes that the festival would help attract tourists even during the current off-season. The traditional Daai Festival is being held at the Fewa ground in Pokhara Municipal Corporation-23 and aims to preserve the tradition by involving tourists and local youth, said the Council Chair Taranath Pahari.
Pokhara tourists will have a firsthand look at Nepal’s traditional agricultural practices. The festival, he stated, will serve to transmit the traditional farming system to future generations.
The Pokhara Tourism Council has been organizing a paddy transplantation festival every year in the month of Asar in the Nepali Lunar calendar to promote tourism by preserving cultivable land, keeping alive the traditional farming system, and the tradition of enjoying Asare Bhaka or songs sung during paddy plantation and Dahi Chiura (eating of yoghurt mixed with curd).
The first Daai Festival is expected to be successful in preserving the productivity of cultivable land within Pokhara Metropolis, currently on the decline due to the fragmentation of the land, said General Secretary of the Council, Jeevan Raj Sapkota.
