Miscellaneous
Bucking tradition to keep a tradition alive
Rajesh Shrestha, 30, is seated at the counter of his laundry shop in Jhochhen, fiddling with his smart phone.Prateebha Tuladhar
As I make small talk, I’m thinking about the other side to these men’s lives. They are Majipa Lakheys—the only ones who have taken up the mask for the last two decades, even though they do not belong to the Ranjitkar clan. Unlike in secular reality, where Newars can work in whatever profession they want, when it comes to traditional rituals, they are expected to abide by traditional codes that define which clan members are supposed to perform what rituals. When Shakya and Shrestha don the Lakhey mask, they do not only need artistic passion to do so but also guts: that’s because, in effect, they are bucking tradition to keep alive certain rituals that are important among Newars. They are not supposed to be Lakheys.
“Traditionally, all Majipa Lakheys, the most powerful of them all, are Ranjits. But we took this up to help a friend,” explains Shrestha, about a tradition that has been a legacy of the Ranjitkar clan.
“When our friend Rajiv Ranjit’s father, a former Lakhey, passed away, we knew he would need more people taking turns at being a Lakhey. It’s a huge responsibility. So we decided to step in.”
It wasn’t just a sense responsibility that drew them toward the undertaking. Growing up in Majipa, the home of the Lakhey, the men had always felt a strong affinity for the Lakhey bajaa— the drums and the cymbals that create the fusion of an awe-inspiring music reminding witnesses to the ritual of dread and grandeur at the same time.
“I loved the music when I was growing up. It had a strange pull for me—enough to make me bunk school just so I could be a part of the troupe,” laughs Shakya, recalling how becoming a part of the band had felt like a major achievement; he later graduated onto becoming jhyalinchaa—the Lakhey’s trickster sidekick.
But the real achievement came when he actually got a chance to be the Lakhey. A Shakya’s doing so amounted to venturing into unknown territory and his family told him that he was “disowned”. Shrestha suffered similar repercussions.
“Our families were very angry when we first became Lakheys. They told us not to return home. For weeks, I remember sleeping at the Lakhey nanee (courtyard), until I was allowed to return home,” he laughs. “No one wants their sons to become Lakheys because a Lakhey is a demon and there’s always so much fighting associated with this character during Indra Jatra. And, really, it’s not the Lakhey who fights, but the people in his team.”
The Indra Jatra, considered one of the greatest festivals of Kathmandu Valley, has always been mired in security issues. While the festival has become controversial in the recent years, because of its association with monarchy, the celebrations have always been rife with infighting between the different groups that conduct the festivities, sometimes resulting in violent brawls.
“We’ve completely stopped the use of alcohol during the festival because we want to focus on performance,” explains Laxman Ranjit, the reigning Lakhey, who has joined our conversation by now, with his twin and step-in, Ram.
Alcohol consumption and fighting are some of the main reasons that caused parents’ disapproval, they explain, besides the issue with prospective lahkeys’ needing to be Ranjitkars: According to mythology, once upon a time, the people of Kathmandu were chasing the Lakhey because the demon was causing havoc in the Valley. The demon fell after slipping on some patches of colour that were being prepared in the Ranjitkar tole in Majipa, and the residents offered him refuge. Since then, the Ranjitkars have been the benefactors of the Lakhey, brining him out once a year during Indra Jatra, while locking him up for the rest of the year.
“But this tradition cannot continue with only the Ranjits doing it because it’s a massive responsibility,” says Laxman Ranjit.
“You can’t say it’s only the Ranjits’ responsibility. It’s for the community. So more and more people should get involved because an inter-caste community functions well and that’s what Indra Jatra teaches us. Everything that happens in it is done by different castes working together. So the Lakhey is everyone’s, too.”
Shakya seconds him.
“In this day and age, people have become so busy. And it’s too much to expect only the Ranjits to keep doing this, so I feel it’s a good thing that others are getting involved.”
The four Lakheys before me, three seated on stools and one on the floor, crack jokes about the jatra and share their experiences of the supernatural, patting each other as they laugh. I smile, shifting my gaze from one face to the other, trying to find the red-masked, fire-haired demon in each of these men’s faces. I wonder out loud what goes on inside their heads when they are doing the dance.
“Our minds are blank, with the sole focus being on our performance,” says Shrestha, and the others nod in agreement. They say that once they don the 15 kg headgear and the five-feet-long robe held together by a heavy belt, they are transported into a different space, as they dance bare-feet.
“A certain power takes over you, the moment you wear that mask, like you transcend your being,” says Shakya. And as I sit with the men, marveling at their camaraderie and willingness to transcend socially defined barriers for the greater good of the Lakhey festival, I think I begin to understand what the ritual is actually all about.
Jhyalinchaa
When the Lakhey became synonymous with fear, for children, the elders devised a way of toning down his fearsomeness without changing the character of the demon himself. They introduced Jhyalinchaa, the little boy dressed in blue and white, whose sole purpose is to tease and poke fun at the Lakhey. This, the elders believed, would help the children to see that the demon wasn’t as fearful as they had imagined. In between dancing, the Lakhey plays a little game of pursuit with the little boy, who keeps on provoking the demon.
“The relationship between Jyalinchaa and Lakhey is very special. Their existence is reciprocal,” says Ajay Shakya, who was a Jhyalinchaa for many years before he went on to become a Lakhey. But the little entertainer isn’t entirely safe from the demon’s wrath. “I can be quite rough with the Jhyalinchaa,” says Lakhey Laxman Ranjit. “I will chase him all around if I’m put off badly during the teasing. And all of them know it,” he adds.
“The Lakhey symbolises fear and that has to be reiterated in whichever way possible. For me, the conflict is one of the ways to demonstrate it.” He explains that he’s already looking forward to his five-year-old son’s enacting the role of the trickster with him, this year.