By Usha Wagle Gautam
A large number of Nepalis in Qatar gathered at Al Dosari Park in Shahaniya about 75 kilometres from Doha recently to celebrate Udhauli.
Udhauli is a Nepali festival celebrated mainly by the eastern community of Kirats and marks the migration of birds and animals downwards to lower altitude towards warmer regions as winter hits their homeland.
Parbat Youth Service Society (PYSS) and Kirat Rai Yagokha, and Kirat Yakthum Chumlung and Sunuwar Service Society jointly organised two separate programmes last weekend.
The garden — a favourite place for Nepali organisations to organise picnics — is crowded every Friday, but this time the crowd was even larger.
As I entered, I bumped into four beautiful young ladies clad in traditional Nepali dresses. Sita Limbu, Sanju Dhital, Sunita Singh and Sunita Rai were making celebrations behalf of Kirat Yakthum Chumlung.
They were rehearsing Dhol Nanch, an exclusive dance for Udhauli festival. The programme — jointly organised by Kirat Rai Yagokha, Kirat Yakthum Chumlung and Sunuwar Service Society — had a large number of attendants. Apart from Nepalis, a sizable number of Pakistanis, Indians, Sudanese and Arabs also attended the celebrations. In all, there were about 700 people there.
Many people passing through the garden were tempted to stop by and take pictures with their phones.
The rice grain used for the celebration was shipped specially from Nepal, along with most of the offerings at the festival, said organiser Shyam Suhang Limbu.
This celebration in Al Dosari Garden was better than the Ubhauli festival organised by the Kirat community in Grand Qatar Palace Hotel six months ago. The cultural show was carefully choreographed as the participants performed Sakela, their tribal dance performed twice a year during full moons.
Soon after, artistes from Sunuwar Service Society came on stage, with Padam Sunuwar enacting a Naso, a chief priest. Ganga Bahadur Sunuwar, Buddhiman Sunuwar, Ganga Bahadur Sunuwar and Rupak Sunuwar accompanied the team to perform the Kirat ritual.
The programme was chaired by Amrit Kumar Limbu, while Shiyaram Chaudary was the chief guest.
The PYSS convention programme featured Devika KC, Dhruba KC, Dil Bahadur BK and Laxmi Magar along with the artistes associated with Nonresident Nepalese Dalit Unity Association and National Naumati Preservation Committee, performing Nepali folk and traditional music. More than 400 people attended.
A Sudanese man from the audience started dancing as Panche Baja played, before Devika KC came on stage to sing Lok geet nasunne ta Nepali nai hoina (Who doesn’t listens to folk music isn’t a Nepali), and spur hundreds into dance Dil Bahadur BK sang a comic song, sending the attendees into fits of laughter.
As the two programmes were happening simultaneously, people would switch places as soon as a speech started.
PYSS also elected its new working committee during the programme, under the chairmanship of Dipendra Jung Lamichhane. Sabindra Shrestha was elected as vice-chairman, Dil Kumar Shrestha as secretary, Yam Bahadur Chhetri as co-secretary, Durga Bahadur Chhetri as treasurer and Dipak Raj Gautam as co-treasurer. Narayan Rimal, Dhan Bahadur, Balkrishna Kunwar, Bikram Paudel, Dipesh Lamichhane, Santosh Kumar Gurung, Ganesh Nepali, Bir Bahadur Nepali and Bhim Bahadur Chhetri are the new central working committee members of PYSS.