Kathmandu. The Paddy Day, which is celebrated every year on Asar 15, is being celebrated today by working in the fields and eating Dahi Chiura.
Farmers who are tired from the hustle and bustle of work eat Dahi Chiura to gain strength. It is believed that Dahi Chiura cools the body at this time and stores strength.
Asar 15 is also considered a festival of eating Dahi Chiura in Nepali society. Nepalis engaged in other professions and businesses besides farming also celebrate Asar 15 by eating Dahi Chiura today. The place of Dahi is important in our culture.
There is a tradition of applying red tika on the forehead before leaving the house or doing important work such as going abroad for auspicious purposes. Before setting out on such auspicious occasions, people also bid farewell by feeding curd as a sign of good luck.
There is a popular belief that eating curd before setting out brings good luck. Curd is also considered to be a health-promoting food from a scientific perspective. It is said that Guru Gorakhnath predicted that Nepal’s unifier, His Majesty King Prithvi Narayan Shah, would become powerful by giving him curd.
In Ayurveda, it is said that if you drink mohi made by mixing curd at the end of a meal, you will not have to go to a health worker for medical treatment. Ayurveda also mentions a sentence like ”भोजन्ते पिवेत तकरं वायद्यस्यास्या किन प्रयाजने तकरं वायद्यस्यायम”.
Curd also increases digestion. Eating curd rice is a medicine when you have diarrhea. Therefore, the tradition of eating curd rice has taken a big form in Nepali culture. Thus, Asad 15 has become a national cultural festival in Nepali society. Rice Day was celebrated as National Rice Day from Asad 15, 2062 BS by a ministerial decision on Mangsir 29, 2061 BS.
Being an agricultural country, most of the people in Nepal are farmers. Farmers are busy farming this month to earn food for the year. On this day, rice is planted in the mud while singing folk songs in the Asare dialect.
People also have fun in the fields by singing folk songs like ‘Chupu and Chupu Hiloma Paddy Planted and Left, Made a Well and Watered and the Cows Will Come’. During this time of mid-summer, young men and women enjoy splashing mud in the fields.
There is also a belief in Nepali society that one must step into the mud once in Asar. This year, even by mid-Asar, not all parts of the country have received enough rain to sow as much rice as they should have. Farmers have complained about the shortage of chemical fertilizers in some places. The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, however, has claimed that there is sufficient stock of chemical fertilizers.
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