For the Nepali diaspora living abroad, Dashain brings a yearning for home. It is dearer to people who have to forego celebrating this much-awaited festival sans their families and friends. [break]
Festivals reflect our culture and to some extent define who we are and where we come from; for people living abroad, it’s time for nostalgia and merriment and they do their best to make themselves feel at home.
“We have a big Nepali students´community here in Fargo/ Moorhead area and we celebrate dashain every year. Nepali Student Association (NSA) in Minnesota State University organizes the Dashain party event which is undoubtedly one of the biggest and most important events for all the Nepali students living here”, said Sunil Paudel, 23, a student of Minnesota State University in Fargo, Moorhead, USA.He further says, since they don’t have a Hindu temple in their community, the NSA picks up the venue, date and time to celebrate the auspicious occasion and everyone gathers in that place. “So, we have a huge get-together, where we do potluck and everybody brings Nepali cuisines and so we eat, play cards, take pictures and party the whole day,” said Paudel, who was visibly elated to celebrate this Dashain.
NSA even brings tika, jamara and performs Puja on the picture of goddess Durga.
Since Dashain is the most auspicious and much-anticipated festival of all Hindus, there are many such Nepali associations in different parts of the world which organize special programs to mark the occasion. Dashain also serves to bring many scattered Nepali communities together.
Prayash Pokharel, 27, a graduate at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, said, “Since we don’t have holidays during Dashain, we generally gather at a place with friends and enjoy playing cards. We also have barbeque parties.” He added that if any one of them has family members or cousins, they arrange a meeting at a place and even have a tika ceremony.
Rumeez Amatya, 22, a student of Central Queensland University in Sydney, Australia, shared, “We plant jamara in our apartment and like in Nepal we celebrate by visiting friends and family. We receive tika from our elders and organize house parties.” He further expressed that they also visit temples in Sydney and even perform puja to the vehicles. “Since all of us take leave on Dashain, we even plan a picnic and go for long drives,” said Rumeez.
Saurabh Ghimire, 23, of Minnesota State University in Moorhead, USA said, “I am looking forward to celebrating Dashain this year too with the support of NSA in Moorhead. NSA is working really hard to make the festive occasion a great success to all the Nepali students studying in Minnesota.”
He further added that the Nepalis community in Moorhead has been celebrating Dashain since many years. “We celebrate it every year and since there are many non-Nepali people here who are interested in Nepali culture, we welcome them as well and show them how we celebrate Dashain,” explained Saurabh.
“Dashain is not so much fun in the States as in Nepal, but keeping the age-old traditions, they do celebrate it,” he said, adding, “Well, nothing beats the Dashain celebration that we have back home but something is better than nothing. We do miss our family a lot but since Dashain is our most important festival, we need to celebrate it irrespective of where we are,” said Saurabh.
The feelings shared by our overseas students, thus, bear testimony to the fact that our heart is filled with longingness for home and family during the Dashain festival though they celebrate it in whatever form in the foreign land.
Related story
Dashain Food Recipes
