Most of my aunts, uncles live in either Dharan, Biratnagar, or Tehrathum and have a very close bond with each other compared to my family who lives in Kathmandu. I hardly remember going there for many of the festivals or weddings, but I remember going to Purba to celebrate Dashain when I was around 5 to 7 years old.
I remember going there by a night bus, the sleepless night in which I imagined celebrating Dashain with my cousins. I thought that during that time the moon was following me the whole night. I remember the morning dew, tuktuk, rikshaw and the moist air of Biratnagar when we arrived at my eldest uncle’s house. I don’t remember much after that, just that I enjoyed going from one relative's house to another.
But I remember one particular event of that Dashain: my five rupees note. Growing up, I always cherished the red notes, especially the 5 and 20 rupees notes. Mainly, it gave me my chocolates from the shop. And even from the red notes, I loved the smallest, the 5 rupees.
Considering that my family gave me dakshina with a lot of 5 rupees, old and new. I kept it in my little pink bag and would have a collection of it. Among the five rupees notes, I forgot to put one old note in my pink bag. I held it in my hand and was walking everywhere with it. My youngest cousin came and asked for that specific note. I hesitated but gave it to him.
And guess what he did?
He tore it up. Like in front of me - my five rupees note. I was devastated. Crying, bawling my eyes out. My cousins were scared and called the elders. They saw that I was very much depressed that my five rupees note was torn. They gave me another 1000, 500, 100 rupees note and heck even another 5 rupees note. But no, I was adamant about getting my same 5 rupees note that was torn up.
Elders, siblings, and cousins were totally confused. They hurriedly taped it up, and gave it to me. I was happy that I got my same note in its past form. I stopped crying after that.
Well, this was the most memorable moment of Dashain. When most of my cousins, siblings, elders were in Nepal, close to one another. Now we hardly travel back for festivals due to the rains and flooding. Even in Purba, most of my cousins are either in foreign countries, busy or planning to go out of the country.
This does break my heart a little but I do hope that I will get to celebrate a Dashain close to all of my family members, elders, cousins, and siblings again.