Darj revels in Deusi-Bhaiio show

SNS, Darjeeling 7 November:  The festive spirit came alive in Darjeeling to day with a tradition-filled 'deusi and 'bhailo' programme organized at Chowrasta, with both tourists and locals getting a good feel of the five- day 'Tihar' (Diwali) festival that began on Monday Organised by the Darjeeling Municipality along with social organisation, the Jan Sevak Sansthan (JSS), the programme was mainly held to showcase the tradition and culture in the Hills to tourists that are visiting the hills at present.

"Keeping the festivities in mind, we wanted to showcase this tradition of ours, which is an integral part of the Tihar festival. This will also be a treat for tourists who will come to know more of our culture, "JSS member Suraj Sharma said.

The organizers further maintained that they also wanted to show youngsters how deusi and bhailo are actually played, with the younger generation modernizing them a bit.

During the five-day 'Tihar' festival, which is celebrated by the Nepali community, 'bhailo' is a traditional Nepali group song sung by women during the third day of the celebrations, followed by 'deusi' which starts on the fourth day where it is the turn of the boys to sing traditional Nepali songs.

Tradition has it that sisters, on the day of Laxmi Puja (Diwali), go from house to house singing Nepali traditional songs and collect money to buy stuff needed for 'bhaitika' where sisters worship their brothers, while 'deusi' is played from the next day and is believed to be done by the brothers to collect money to give it to their sisters on 'bhaitika'.

There are others who believe that 'deusi' and 'bhailo' could have been started by people to foster community spirit in the past.

People believe that earlier, people did not meet much as the distances between two houses were great with big jungles in between, while the population also being very thin.