Nepal's Religious Festivals Tihar: Festival of Deusi enthusiasts

Tihar (Dipawali) festival, the Tihar: Festival of Deusi enthusiasts

The Tihar festival is also the occasion for all the Deusire and Bhailire enthusiasts to go around their neighbourhood to collect money and sweets. Deusi and Bhailo are played for two consecutive nights of Laxmi Puja and Govardhan Puja. As dusk falls, people specially the youngsters are seen in the streets and alleys walking with musical instruments - like guitar, drum set, keyboard and many more for the Deusi and Bhailo carol. With increasing modernisation, the traditional form of singing Deusi and Bhailo has also been modernised.

People in the past took Deusi and Bhailo as the custom to rejoice and give blessings.However, in the recent years the Deusi and the Bhailo carols seem to have turned into a mobile concert. The speciality of today's youngsters is that they start the carol with few traditional Deusi and Bhailo lines and go ahead with English, Nepali and even Hindi pop songs along with the music of sophisticated musical instruments. Singing only traditional songs will make our Deusi and Bhaili uninteresting and people will give only a little amount of money. Even house owners are habituated to hear modern songs. Youngsters not only sing for fun but at the same time they also expect to collect as much money as possible visiting as much houses as possible.

The youths of today even send invitation cards to the houses where they wish to visit.They select the houses that look affluent from the outside with the expectation to get plenty of money as rewards.The Deusi and the Bhaili are played on the nights of Laxmi and Govardhan Puja, the third and fourth nights of the five-day festival respectively.

The legend

The Deusire and the Bhailire singing began in ancient times after Great King Bali donated his own head to Lord Vishnu. The story in the Puran goes like this - Baman Dev, who is believed to be the fifth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, came to the palace of King Bali (Baliraja) when he was performing Puja.

King Bali was very popular for giving alms to any one who came to his palace. Baman Dev asked for only three steps with Baliraja. Baliraja,without knowing who the Baman was, agreed to fulfil his demand. To Baliraja's great surprise, Baman Dev with his two steps covered the Earth and the Universe and asked the great king where he would place his third step. Bali was confused and did not know what to say. At this moment Baliraja's wife used her presence of mind and suggested him to offer his own head (Deusire) to place Baman's last step.

For Baliraja greatest alms charity, he gained Lord Vishnu's favour and also attained salvation. It is believed from that day Baliraja's citizens celebrated the day as Deusire.There is also a belief in the month of Kartik (the month when Baliraja donated his head) if one donates something, it will do good to the alms-giver. This was how the tradition of Deusi and Bhailo originated.