Machindranat Festival

Today I was witness to something that is unbelieveably difficult to describe. I say that only because, being there, all I could think was that "this could only ever happen in Nepal!"

Imagine the narrow semi-paved streets of many central Asian countries. Their tiny packed-in storefronts below colourful residential buildings, interspersed with greenspaces, behind lately-added and akward looking elecrical poles with their long rubbery wires. Then take those strees and pack them full - FULL - of people. At least 5000 per city block. This was the scene that myself and my seven companions were greeted with on our journey to see Machindranat. We couldn't see it yet, but after about ten minutes of crowd-navigating, we rounded a corner to see a sight which caused us all to do somewhat of a doubletake.

In our present scene on these central-Asian streets, add an enormous cart, about 10 feet by 20 feet, much like those used to haul hey in rural communities. Make the wheels about five feet high, and then paint it in colourful reds, greens, blues, and blacks. On top of this wagon, put four or five Nepali men in light purple robes on top, in front of a Buddhist-Hindu shrine with a gold figure inside. Then overtop of this shrine, which takes up most of the cart, put a three-storey cedar. Yes that's right - an enormous, artificial, conical tree, built out of who-knows-what, with a few Nepali flags at its top.

As we were absorbing all this, we were directed to a spot down the road which the whole procession would eventually pass. The procession was something else, too. Headed by Gourkha souldiers, the infamous Nepali contingent of the British Imperial Army, this procession then contained a whole bunch of random Nepali men dancing wildly in the streets. After these, came Machindranat, the enormous chariot (the tree on top of which was dangerously leaning over at about 30 degrees), pulled by a good 200 Nepali men. It took quite a bit of coordination to pull this thing, and considering that the vast majority of participants had had various amounts of alchohol, it made the whole thing even more impressive. In response to the question, "isn't this dangerous?", our guide (Bikash, who is my hero) looked at us, with an enormous smile on his face, and simply said, "Oh it's SO dangerous!!!" It turns out tons of people have been killed by falling from the chariot, being crushed by it, trampled by the croud, etc. I got in there to give the chariot a pull, and I can say first-hand that that crowd is crazy!

So in response to the next logical question, they are doing this as a form of worship. Pulling the chariot all over town is a way of blessing the city and bringing a good harvest, agreeable weather, and general good luck. Along with Buddhism and Hinduism, Anamism is also very important in Nepal, so rituals like this are very important and almost everyone participates in some form or another.

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