Everyone comes to celebrate the festival but no one stays back to clean the festival ground wearing their best costumes! A group of cousins from ‘The Cousins Reading Club’ at Tekarshong came together on 7th October 2022 to clean the festival ground after the three-day annual Tamshing Tshechu. Cleaning trashes in the best dress!
Photo - The cousins with their loot 'bags full of trashes'
This year's Annual Tamshing Tshechu (5 to 7 Oct. 2022) was celebrated with much excitement 'in person' after the closed-door celebration for the past two years due to the COVID pandemic. The population of Bumthang valley roped in their best clothes and came to celebrate the annual festival. The local community was excited too to host the festival.
The annual festival is celebrated by the elderly as a means of reflection of their inner souls while younger generations are excited with new costumes and toys their parents would buy for them - equivalent to birthday treats! For the business communities, it is also an opportunity to market their produce. The festival seems to bring pure joy and celebration to the whole community.
Photo - Crowd at the celebration on 7 Oct 2022
The annual Tamshing festival is popularly known as ‘Tamshing Phagla Choepa’ which somehow is linked to one of the ‘scared’ dances at the festival - the phagcham (dance with a swine-headed mask, symbolizing the inaugural ceremony of the construction of Tamshing temple by celestial beings during the time of the Bhutanese cultural hero - Pema Lingpa (1450–1521). The festival is organized by the monks of the Buddhist school and College at Tamshing in partnership with neighboring villages.
Photo - The popular Phagcham at the festival
Many thanks again to our little cousins for setting a new record in the history of Bhutan! The whole community is proud of you!
Link to 'Trash Cleaning' (Recorded and narrated by one of the parents)
Published 8 Oct 2022
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