From bitter-sweet lyrics with which women vent their emotions to notes of resilience against patriarchy, Teej songs have for years been used as a means to reflect women’s position in Nepali society.
On July 19, singer Sophia Thapa released a Teej song ‘No Barta Please’ on YouTube. Through the song, Thapa urges women who are pressured to fast on Teej to not succumb to external forces. “If one wants to fast, it should be their personal choice,” says Thapa, who wrote the song during the lockdown days within two days.
“Through the song I also wanted to comment on discriminatory customs, like drinking khutta ko pani [leftover water after the husband’s feet are cleaned], which are responsible for maintaining hierarchy,” she says, for whom such songs are an artistic medium through which she conveys messages of equality and rebels against patriarchal practises in the name of festival and culture.
Her song, however, was met with a lot of backlash, and the video of the song had to be removed from the social media site because the singer started facing threats from the public as well as religious fundamentalists.
Although Thapa had to pay a price for being vocal about women issues through her work, according to Indira Mishra, associate professor of English in Mahendra Multiple Campus, Dharan, the essence of Teej songs has always been this—to use the songs as a medium to vent out the frustrations and grief women face in society, because of patriarchy’s unfair treatment and other societal injustices.
“Teej songs, most of the time, are filled with pathos, as it has always been used as a medium through which women express their problems,” says Mishra, who has written research articles and presented academic papers on Teej songs.
Celebrated annually on the third day of the waxing moon in the Nepali month of Bhadra, Teej is a prominent festival which is observed with fervour and enthusiasm mostly by Hindu women living in the hills and plains of Nepal.
The women observe the festival (by feasting and dancing with other women and then fasting) in the hope that they will find a ‘good’ husband like goddess Parvati did in lord Shiva. Legend has it that goddess Parvati, who was supposed to marry lord Vishnu, too had undergone rigorous fasting to get Lord Shiva, as he was the one she wanted to marry. Married women observe the festival in the hopes that their husbands will have long lives.
On this day, women dressed in various hues of red, orange, green and pink dance their heart out in both public and private places on Teej songs, which according to Bindu Sharma, assistant professor of Nepali at Ratna Rajya Campus, is the soul of the festival.