Change is a natural phenomenon. A small boy changes into a matured man. A brand new car becomes old after using it for some years, whereas a city with population of few thousand turns into a city populated with few million within a short amount of time. Likewise, this ‘change’ has also altered the trend of celebrating festivals and their importance.

A decade back, the festival of women, Teej, was just a day-long festival for the Brahmin and Chhetri community. Daughter-in-laws used to go their parents’ home on Teej. For a day, she enjoyed dancing, gossiping, putting on new red clothes with sindur, pote and chura and fasting for the long life of her husband. After a few years, the Teej celebration began to last for a week. In this week-long festival relatives’, friends and colleagues were invited to each other’s home where women enjoyed fasting along with gossiping, dancing and showing off their latest fashions and ornaments. In the meantime, the men of the household enjoyed their holiday at home playing cards with beverages and food.

However, the gale of change has modified this festival even more in the past few years. Teej is now not only the festival of Brahmins and Chhetris; rather, it has become a popular festival amongst the entire Nepali community. Most women are dressed red with all the accompanying ornaments. Moreover, justifying that they are not able to gather all their relatives’ and friends and enjoy the festival, women these days celebrate Teej as a month long festival.

The trend of celebrating Teej has become commercialised. In the name of Teej, various groups have been formed. These groups organise various parties and events in expensive hotels and party palaces. The trend of playing cards and selling lottery tickets has also started among women. Similarly, different business houses organise fairs and provide discounts and offers on the occasion of Teej to lure in more customers and increase their sales. Hence, women have been more attracted to shopping and showing off their purchases. The competitive feeling of who dons the most expensive clothes and ornaments is hidden inside every woman during the festival. This feeling has certainly developed a cold-war between some groups. Not only that, this has also resulted to disputes, quarrels and has hindered the unity of women in many circumstances.

Although this trend has been started by the high-income group of women, the middle and the low-income groups have also been suffering. As high-class people spend a lot of money in the name of Teej, the middle and the low-income people are compelled to expend more as well, which is often out of their ability. The positive consequence of this festival is that it has gained more popularity and has helped in conserving the national culture and tradition. But despite a few positive impacts, this trend has many negative impacts on society. Hence, realising the consequences of changing trends in the celebration of festivals, it is duty of all of us to avoid their commercialisation.