Teej

Last year I was gifted a number of red bangles for Teej, and this weekend I brought them out for Tegan to play with as it is again Teej season.  We went out for lunch today and saw plenty of women in beautiful red saris with lots of sparkles and rhinestones.  It's an amazing sight against the muddy colors of Kathmandu.

Bangles galore

This week many women in Nepal celebrated Teej. As it was explained to me, Teej involves different events over a few days including fasting and praying to Shiva for health and good fortune for their husbands (and thus their families). The visual part of this celebration is that women wear red saris and sulwar kurta (pants and tunics) with lots of jewelry, bangles in particular.  I was given a number of bangles for this event, all with plenty of bling on them.  Putting bangles on takes a certain amount of skill, as apparently the smaller the bangle size the better and they must be eased over the bones in your hand.  Tegan's nanny helped me put some of mine on in the morning, and soap and cold water were required in the evening to get them off again.