Bisket Jatra

Bisket Jatra is Bhaktapur's most important festival and one of the few Nepali festivals fixed to the solar calendar, falling around 13–14 April as the Bikram Sambat new year turns. It is a raw, exhilarating celebration — usually reckoned at nine days — built around massive chariot processions and a ferocious tug-of-war.

Its origin is told as a serpent legend. A Bhaktapur king, so the story goes, offered his daughter's hand and his throne to any man who could marry her — but every bridegroom was found dead the morning after the wedding night, killed by two serpents that crept from the sleeping princess's nostrils. A brave suitor, guided by the goddess Bhadrakali in the guise of an old woman, stayed awake, drew a sword and slew the snakes; the festival is said to celebrate their defeat. The popular reading of the name follows from this — bi-sika, 'the death of the serpent' — though scholars trace it instead to biskyat, a word for the solar new year, and treat the serpent meaning as a later folk gloss.

The centrepiece is the towering chariot of Bhairava, hauled through the narrow brick lanes — scraping the old houses as hundreds of men heave on the ropes — in a tug-of-war between the upper (thane) and lower (kone) halves of the city, the winning side claiming the year's fortune; the goddess Bhadrakali rides in her own chariot alongside. On new year's eve a tall wooden lingo pole is raised at Khalna Tole; its toppling the next day marks the turn of the year, and rice beer (thwon) flows throughout. Around greater Bhaktapur the new year brings related spectacles — the sindur jatra of Thimi, where crowds hurl orange vermilion powder, and the tongue-piercing rite at Bode. Unlike many festivals that have been tidied up for onlookers, Bisket keeps its fierce, chaotic energy.