Probably, it was a different experience for me. I proposed to Tek dai to celebrate Dashain as we used to celebrate in Nepal , since we were 4 members from our family in Korea including Kaki. As we decided, he grew some maize sprout (JAMARA) in Seoul University Dormitory. It was really exciting moment when I checked the jamara just after I got there from my university. They were so nice and so natural right like our worshiping room (Puja Kotha) in darker corner in our house. Usually we choose darker corner of the house to grow the sprout (JAMARA) so that their colour turned yellowish because of insufficient light. The auspicious moment for TIKA (to have marks with red coloured rice in forehead) was 11.00 am according to Nepalese time. We already passed 1.00 pm Korean time. Kaki argued that auspicious time was indeed 2.pm converting the nepali time into Korean. But in fact I was feeling hunger since I did not have breakfast that morning ( before TIKA having breakfast or any kind of foods is not allowed culturally). We started our tika by 1.15. It was the Korea still there was a kind of feeling that how much fun I would make if I was in Nepal with my family-my daughter, my wife, my mother. And indeed I was really missing my daughter at that moment because that dashain was the first dashain for her. She just crossed one year. In last Dashain, she was less than one month old. For the child before the inauguration of food (usually for boy after 6 or 8 months and for girl after 5 or 7 months after birth) TIKA is forbidden. I just called them, talked with binod dai, unfortunately I couldn't get contacted to mother and other members of the family. One good aspect was that at least we were going to celebrate Dashain even in Korea and not having the day off with fresh JAMARA and with family environment but these festival, celebration in the foreign countries I found they bring the storm of old days memories and severely you missed your land your society and your family. In this sense it is bad as well.
Any way we wear the TIKA, had the lunch together with chicken with Nepali test and other tasty pickles and Daal. Took picture and movies. There was some fun too while having photo graph. Some time we wear tika at first and missed to take picture or some time picture quality was not good. We just repeated the moment only for picture. It was a kind of acting. Kaki was laughing and was happy for this moment until the evening when many other Nepali people came to have TIKA. Finally she was enthusiastic because initially when I purpose to celebrate the Dashain I did not see the eagerness and enthusiasm on her. She believe in foreign land Celebrating Dashain and following culture is only a mock. But she realized it was worth to memorize.
These some picture shows the happiness of that day. among small family in Korea.
