Celebrating Basant Panchmi, a spring festival in Uttarkashi, India
Basant Panchmi Greetings to all.
Uttarkashi is a town on the way to Gangotri and Gaumukh in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand.
Traditionally, Basant Panchmi is a farmer's festival here. They collect some gobar fertilizer (cowdung manure), all farming implements and some grains to be blessed by the village priest. The priest then divines for the village and predicts about the upcoming harvest. He is given food grains for his work.
The dholi in each village goes around asking for his share in the harvest too. Each village has its own drummer, the dholi who is perhaps the most important person in the village - generally from a schedule caste, the job is passed from father to son.
Celebrating Spring in the Himalayas
Girls dress up for the occasion and pluck yellow flowers and decorate the main doors of the house with it welcoming the spring and the new sowing season. Soon the fields that have been lying barren for the past three month will be ringing with the sounds of the bells of the bulls and the cries of the farmer tilling the fields :).
May the spring bring new hope and renewed energy in all our lives.
