Kathmandu :

The queen was so saddened by the death of her child that king Pratap Malla had to do something to zap her back into the world of the living. So, Gai jatra was born as a procession of solace for the grief-stricken queen and to let her know that it was not only her who had lost a beloved one.

The Gai jatra observed on August 10 at the Basantapur Durbar Square was anything but sad.

Children (some so young that they had to be carried) with makeup and curly-curly moustaches drawn with kohl, decked up in yellow or saffron or gold or red-and-gold costumes led the processions from various neighbourhoods.

Bands of different kinds — traditional ones with sanai or the brass bands that is common during weddings complete with the band members in their red jackets — accompanied the processions, which are brought our by households that have lost someone in the past one year. And such families also give edibles to these decked up young children.

Bhajans — Om jai Jagdish, Raghupati Ragh-avan Raja Ram fought with popular Bollywood numbers for a place on the bands’ music sheets.

And many had brought cows for the jatra, while one group had put a calf in a rickshaw at the

head of the procession. Perhaps it was scared or too stubborn to move in the crowd.

Hundreds had turned up for the event and the atmosphere at the Durbar Square was more about a celebration of life than of mourning the dead. Here were people remembering their dead not with a grief that sees no hope, but with hearts that celebrated the lives that had been led by their loved ones.