I came across this video a little while ago. Its not particularly stunning, but I was moved. This maybe because it also happens to be Losar, the Tibetan New Year, traditionally celebrated in Tibet for 15 days to a month. Can you imagine picnic-ing, singing, dancing, drinking chhang and having fun for an entire month with family and friends?
My Tibetan friends in exile, here in Delhi, are celebrating Losar 2138 (the Iron Rabbit Year) just for three days.
A little bit of History (courtesy, Wiki):
The celebration of Losar predates Buddhism in Tibet and can be traced back to the pre-Buddhist Bön period. In this early Bön tradition, every winter a spiritual ceremony was held, in which people offered large quantities of incense to appease the local spirits, deities and 'protectors'. This religious festival later evolved into an annual Buddhist festival which is believed to have originated during the reign of the ninth King of Tibet. The festival is said to have begun when an old woman named Belma introduced the measurement of time based on the phases of the moon. This festival took place during the flowering of the apricot trees of the Lhokha Yarla Shampo region in autumn, and it may have been the first celebration of what has become the traditional farmers' festival. It was during this period that the arts of cultivation, irrigation, refining iron from ore and building bridges were first introduced in Tibet. The ceremonies which were instituted to celebrate these new capabilities can be recognized as precursors of the Losar festival. Later when the rudiments of astrology, based on the five elements, were introduced in Tibet, this farmer's festival became what we now call the Losar or New Year's festival.
I wonder how many years it will be before all Tibetans return to their home to celebrate Losar the way it is meant to be celebrated: in the midst of family and friends, with pride and no fear.
