Tenzing Dolma Ghale has lived in Kathmandu since childhood for her studies, but Dashain has always meant going home. For the 20-year-old, the festival brings back memories of her childhood and village, and the chance to reunite with family, relatives and friends. This year, however, that annual homecoming was impossible. Her house is gone, and so is the road to her village.
“Having lived here since I was a child, I have always thought of Dashain as the time to go home. This year, I have neither a home nor a road to get there,” she said.
The Bhotekoshi flood on August 26 swept away Ghale’s house and the road leading to her village. She also lost her father. Now living at Mustang Gumba in Swayambhu, Kathmandu, she faces a Dashain unlike any she has known.
For the 111 families sheltering at the monastery, the festival has brought little joy.
“Our entire village has been wiped out,” said Chhwang Renzhen Lama, struggling to hold back tears. “Dashain used to be such a joyful time. Now we have to rely on handouts just to get by.”
Born in Timure, Rasuwa, in 1961, Lama spent 66 years of his life in the Himalayan village. In previous years, Dashain brought a special warmth to his home. Families gathered at the local monastery for prayers, children and grandchildren dressed in new clothes, and relatives came together on the day of tika to receive blessings with white tika, following their cultural tradition.
But the flood swept away his birthplace, the savings of a lifetime and members of his family. “Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren were our greatest source of comfort,” he said with a sigh. “We always thought they would be there to care for us in our old age. But they are gone.”
Across Nepal, Dashain is a time of celebration. Roads and bus stations fill with people heading to their hometowns, eager to reunite with loved ones. For the people of Timure, however, there is little to celebrate. In past years, the return of children and grandchildren studying in Kathmandu and elsewhere for Dashain and Tihar turned the village into a place of festivity.
“Grandchildren would rush to greet us,” Lama recalled. “Now, those memories are painful.”
Timure is home to Tamang, Gurung, Newar, Sherpa and Bhote communities, who have lived alongside one another for generations. While Hindus generally wear red tika during Dashain, residents of these communities follow their cultural traditions and wear white tika.
For Hlakpa Nagarkoti, a Timure resident now living at Mustang Gumba, the festival’s preparations once began with Phulpati, a key day in the Dashain calendar. On the eve of Phulpati, villagers would gather at the monastery, each bringing food to share.
On Phulpati, mothers and other women would prepare sal-leaf plates and chop vegetables, while those observing religious fasts would stay at the monastery after ritual purification. On Ashtami, the eighth day of the festival, villagers refrained from killing animals or engaging in any form of violence.
“We would fast throughout Ashtami. We would avoid talking to one another and keep reciting ‘Om Mani’,” Nagarkoti said. “We prayed for everyone’s well-being and asked forgiveness for the killing and sins that take place during Dashain.”
Timure also has a distinctive tradition known as “Chhyabe”. On four designated days each month, including the new and full moons, residents abstain from meat and do not bring slaughtered meat into their homes. On Ashtami, too, they would eat meat dried and preserved earlier, mixed with potatoes, while reciting “Om”, rather than slaughtering animals for the occasion.
On the morning of Nawami, members of the Newar community would worship Bhimsen, their ancestral deity. They would then celebrate Navami and Dashami with tika and festivities.
This year, the monastery in Timure is gone, along with the place where villagers once gathered to pray.
“The other day, just before Phulpati, I suddenly remembered how things used to be in our village,” Nagarkoti said. “We looked through old photographs and cried with our friends. We talked about how, if the landslide had not happened, we would have been at the village monastery reciting prayers and turning the prayer wheels.”
“This morning, we would have been performing the Bhimsen puja. Instead, we put a little tika on each other in our room and sat there, hoping that nothing bad would happen to us.”
After losing almost everything, hundreds of families, including those of Lama and Nagarkoti, are now struggling to rebuild their lives in Kathmandu. People who once owned permanent homes in their village must rely on others to put food on the table each morning and evening. Foreign organisations and various monasteries have been providing relief supplies and food, but uncertainty about the future weighs heavily on them.
“I am old, and I can somehow manage even if I have to depend on others for food,” Lama said. “But what future do our grandchildren and great-grandchildren have if they grow up relying on handouts? I worry about how they will be treated and whether they will be able to live with dignity.”
The families are also anxious about loan instalments for houses they built before the disaster, and fear calls from banks demanding repayment.
Nearly two months after the floods and landslides, residents of Timure say no representatives of the state or local government have visited to ask about their welfare. Their frustration has grown alongside their uncertainty about what comes next.
Dawa Dorje Lama, a former ward chair of Timure in ward 2 of Gosainkunda Rural Municipality, said the families had received no assistance from the state.
“We were given shelter here because I knew the chair of the monastery,” he said. “It has been two months, but not a single government representative has come to ask us how we are doing, what we need or how we are managing. There is neither a local government nor a provincial government for us.”
According to Dawa Dorje, 111 households are currently staying at Mustang Gumba. After accommodating the families for nearly two months, the monastery is also struggling to manage their needs.
Without concrete plans for recovery, compensation or resettlement, the displaced families remain uncertain about their future. Residents say the government must act quickly to help them rebuild their lives. Yet, despite their losses, Lama and others have not entirely given up hope.
“We have to start again from zero. I want to return to our village and die on the land where we built our lives,” said Lama. “We still have a lot of hope in the state. We are waiting, hoping that even if it takes time, the government will eventually do something for us.”
Pemba Tamang, 36, also wants to return to his ancestral home.
“We will get through Dashain and find a way to comfort our children,” said Pemba Tamang, 36. “But what happens to us after that? We want to return to our village, yet we have no idea what the government is doing to help us rebuild our lives.”