Indra Jatra, Fashion Show, Earthquake

We celebrated Indra Jatra, a Hindi holiday which Wikipedia summarizes better than I could:

Indrajatra (Devnagari:इन्द्रजात्रा, Sanskrit: Indrajatra) is a festival celebrated in Kathmandu, Nepal. The main attraction of the festival is the procession of chariots and masked dancers representing deities and demons.
Indrajatra is a holiday related to Hindu god king of heaven, Indra. The festival begins with the carnival-like erection of Yosin, a ceremonial pole, accompanied by the rare display of the deity Aakash Bhairab, represented by a massive mask spouting beer and liquor. Households throughout Kathmandu display images and sculptures of Indra and Bhairab only at this time of year. Finally, the Kumari, or virgin goddess (living goddess), leaves the seclusion of her temple in a palanquin and leads a procession through the streets of Kathmandu to thank Indra the rain god.

We went to a hotel in Durbar Square and had a Vo'ye feast, which was diverse and wonderful. This happened about a month ago and I am feeling lazy today, so here is another link : http://theweek.myrepublica.com/details.php?news_id=35793



After the meal, we were walking thru the Square when the living goddess came out (see image in Wikipedia article). She was being swarmed by people looking for photographs but was smiling and waving. The whole evening was unique and enjoyable.

A couple of weeks later, we were all invited to a fashion show at the famed Yak and Yeti hotel for the first ever Kathmandu Fashion Parade. I put up a weak protest because there was soccer I would miss and to ensure the preservation of my manhood, but part of me was secretly excited to attend. Everyone got dressed up and we got to the hotel, where in attendance were all of the elites and "celebrities" of Nepal gossiping and eating hor's doeuvres. We were seated in the front row and proceeded to wait for the show to begin. 45 minutes after teh scheduled starting time (welcome to Nepal!), the models started walking. My high expectations were quickly dashed as the first model proceeded to awkwardly walk the runway in high heels as if she were trudging through wet cement. The first couple of designers sent down variants of modernized 'kurtis', which were colorful and well-fitting (what else can be said?) Subsequent designs were office wear and business casual. One of the last showings was a series of girls in white t-shirts who appeared to all be wearing the same thing. I was struggling to appreciate the 'vision' of such a repetitive series until I realized that they were modeling the bags they were carrying.

Overall, I would give my entertainment rating a 6.8/10. The hotel itself is fantastic, and the excitement in the room before the show was palpable. The show itself lasted about 45 minutes, and I was entertained for about 15 of them before mentally checking out and pretending to score the outfits on my program like they do on Project Runway. My overall opinion of the clothes is irrelevant (as I know nothing about fashion) but I did notice that some of the items were unfinished, which I believe is a big fashion no-no. It also seemed like anyone with a pulse was allowed to be a model in this show, which is awful to say, but if ugliness distracts from the clothes something is wrong. All of the females that we went with were underwhelmed by the showing, but everyone had fun.

Two Sundays ago, Shehrish and I were walking back from the grocery store when suddenly everyone behind us started screaming and running. As I followed suit and started to run, I first thought of a truckload of gangsters approaching wielding assault rifles and machetes like in Blood Diamond due to all of the screaming. While running, I felt everything to start to shake, which then made me think a stampede of cattle were about to trample me. Only afterwards did Shehrish and I look at each other and realize that what we had felt was an earthquake. We got back to her home and quickly pulled out the earthquake survival kit that is kept in storage in the event of an aftershock that could have been worse. Amid the chaos, Shehrish had dropped her phone in the street, and we went back out to try and locate it with a flashlight. The streets were jammed with people (one of whom snatched up her phone) and the tension of the crowd was akin to that of my high school after the 9/11 attacks, where everyone felt scared, confused, helpless and full of adrenaline all at the same time. Post-earthquake aftershocks are oftentimes more devastating than the initial earthquake, so everybody was on high alert. We loaded up on bottled water and more Ramen noodles for the earthquake kit and went back to her home. Once my adrenaline cooled, I started feeling dizzy and nauseous from the shaking, which stayed with me into the next day.

The next day at school we accessed the earthquake kits and ran through a drill with all of the children. Some of the younger ones were still upset and scared, but my class of second graders were riled up and everyone shared their experience of where they were when it happened. There were some aftershocks, but I didn't feel any of them. The epicenter of the quake was in Sikkim and around 75 people died in India, Tibet and Nepal (six in Nepal). The magnitude was 6.8, making it the biggest earthquake to hit Nepal since 1934. I still find tornadoes scarier, but I'm thankful that everyone around me was fine.