September/October 2000 FESTIVALS Women's day in Nepal Each year in Nepal, wives, mothers and daughters rejuvinate and purify themselves for the sake of their husbands and families By Sushma Joshi, Kathmandu Hinduism Today has received reports from Nepal that in 1999, members of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) attempted to discourage women from participating in the popular annual Teej festival and to create dissension among those who dared. The long line of women dressed in a thousand shades of red, are waiting to get a glimpse of an ancient stone image of Siva and worship Him with the flowers and vermillion they carry in their hands. Having fasted the previous day and night, some of them faint from the heat and hunger as they wait in line, sometimes for three hours. They are of all ages, girls as young as five accompanying their mothers and sisters, grandmothers with their walking sticks, young mothers with babies at their breasts. They come to a...
The civil wars of the twenty-first century: Sushma Joshi's slightly twisted perspective of the universe.