On the Road with the Red God

Art & Society

On The Road With The Red God Kesang Tseten’s new film captures both the Rato Machhindranath festival and the preprations accompanying the grand event in a blow-by-blow rendition BY SUSHMA JOSHI Nation Weekly, August 26, 2004 The sight of a priest proudly display- ing a tiny vest at the Rato Machhindranath festival has been etched into our national consciousness. “On the road with the Red God: Machhindranath” is a film recently made by Kesang Tseten. Tseten takes 110 hours of footage of various acts of human ingenuity and devotion to what seems like a lost cause—namely, the construction of an unwieldy 100 foot chariot that gets tangled up in the electric wires of Patan and tilts drunkenly as it is dragged and pushed and pulled by enthusiasts across flood-washed roads every 12 years, and where men get roaring drunk and get into fights all the way from Bungmati to Patan, and then repeat the process all the way back. Behind the vest rests a red god, known as the Rato Machhindranath. This is the divinity worthy of all that work—painters, artisans, rope-makers and carpenters donate days of working hours to build him that sky-high vehicle. Thought to be a manifestation of Avalokiteswor, the Buddha of Compassion by some, and Shiva by others, the Rato Machhindranath enjoy a popular following. While we have all seen this god in one form or another—postcard, photograph, television appearance—what is not clear to most Valley residents is why this god in general, and his festival in particular, took on such national significance. Tseten’s film, by carefully documenting the entire process from the beginning, brings us a rare behind-the-scene glimpse of a production involving uncountable actors and decision-makers, from the guthis of Bungmati and Patan to the hundreds of people who materialize to drag the chariot back and forth between the two cities. The festival can appear, on first sight, to be a classic excuse to get drunk and get into a good fight. Buff young men fight each other to get on the prow-shaped steering brake. The ousted men are unceremoniously pulled off. Acrimonious exchanges involving everything from the division of meat to the dogs to assigning blame for the tilting of the chariot is apparent. Scenes of conflict abound, and after a while you begin to wonder how people even manage to get that goddamn chariot upright, let alone drag it all the way from Bungmati to Patan. If the chariot falls down and touches the ground, bad things happen. Kings can die, royal families can get massacred, and the guthi people can mysteriously get sick and die in mass numbers. The chariot has to be rebuilt anew in the event of such a calamity. So there rests a level of national responsibility amongst all the people involved in the venture. Some measure of co-operation amongst all the different people—from the men who run alongside and swiftly put a piece of wood in between the wooden wheels to brake the momentum, to the men perched on top who give the navigational directions, to the buff young men doing the steering, to the hundreds of volunteers who pull the ropes—has to exist. And don’t forget the women who brew all that potent alcohol. After a while, the seeming chaos and loose organization take on a logic of their own. In spite of the overt conflict, which gets hashed out at every level, it’s apparent that the co-operative nature of Newari society remains the core spirit that guides the enterprise. While it started out as a local Newari festival, the discourse on the streets makes it clear that all Nepalis think of the festival as their own. When the chariot finally makes it into Jawalakhel, the level of mass participation and work involved in the process comes to fruition. When the priest takes out that tiny vest and displays it so proudly to the country, he is not just taking out a medieval garment—he is also taking out the symbol of a process in which, in spite of the conflict that exists at every level of society, the spirit of co-operation has again triumphed over small differences and created a structure in which such a mind-bogglingly complicated event could take place. In both a literal and a symbolic level, the festival is an analogy of any large structure, i.e., our nation-state. Conflict exists at all levels in every organization. The trick is to find a way to resolve it without major calamity. Tseten, by actively editing footage to show the reality of conflict and its day-to-day resolution, follows more than a chariot. He is following the god behind that vest—the god of compassion that can allow a society made up of diverse and heterogeneous groups of people to come together and work on a national project without getting crushed. (Writers note: This review was written after watching the first or second edit of "Red God". The documentary was then edited several times since then, and has taken a completely new form. Apologies if it misleads the reader and documentary watcher--but as with all works of art, I think its interesting to see all steps of the creation.)