Dohori--Nepal's take on karaoke

---

Ever willing to show us a good time in Nepal, Rajan has, from the beginning, insisted that we spend an evening at dohori. Nepal's version of karaoke, dohori is essentially a mash-up of traditional folk songs and gender dynamics with contemporary pop culture and sexuality. Legend has it that traditionally dohori was a casual gathering of locals--men pitted against women in an impromptu call-and-response song battle in which all lyrics were made up on the spot, phrased in the form of a question, and made to rhyme.

These days dohori is slightly less romantic and significantly more absurd. Young twenty something men and women strut around stage dressed in garish versions of traditional costume and sing folk and modern pop songs while shimmying their shoulders and thrusting their hips. The clients are mostly drunk young men who take over the dance floor in sweating and thrusting packs, showcasing dance moves that would be considered social suicide in the West but which are received with applause and admiration in Nepal.

Audience participation is an important component of dohori and guests are encouraged to write their own two or three line lyrics, which are then submitted to the dohori singers for a live jukebox kind of effect. Rajan, always a tour guide and excellent host, composed his own lyrics about our motley crew of foreign and Nepali friends. We heard our names called (or rather we heard an awkwardly strung together set of syllables with the name "Mario" thrown into the middle somewhere) and took to the dance floor to demonstrate our own take on Nepali dance style. Some of the madness was captured in photos:

---

Photos

Saturday Night Fever
Rajan looks appropriately like John Travolta in this photo with Heather.

Sexy stage man
The head male singer that night was a short and saucy seductor. His signature move was a bold and flirty eyebrow raise directed at one person in particular (each one of the men and women of our group fell victim several times) coupled with a shoulder shimmy. Here he is in action.

Comments

[G&B&G]

Love it!
Dance party - Nepal style. Gabbers would be proud!

[kamal dhamala]

i need dohori karaoke
plz send tha dohori track