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New Year festival Lossar celebrated in Leh

     Ladakh: Lossar, a ten-day New Year festival, in which thousands of Tibetans and Ladakhis participated, concluded in Leh on Friday. They performed folk dances and rituals to celebrate the New Year, which comes in the eleventh month of the local calendar. "Ullu-Bullu was performed on January 8. On January 9, we have celebrated Apo-Api which is called Stolma in Leh. We embrace New Year with hope and forget all the bad incidents that occurred during the past year," said Rinchen Namgyal, a local. Lossar is a Buddhist festival but people of all religions celebrate it every year by worshiping the local deities and participating in the rituals. "When Buddhist celebrates their new year people of all religions congratulate them. Like wise it happens during Hindu, Muslim and Christian festivals. People congratulate each other on festival days irrespective of their religion. This is the specialty of Leh and the same culture is followed in surrounding areas as well," Tsering Norbu, a scholar said. After performing the rituals, the people welcome the New Year with a 360-item spectacular folk dance with masked faces, sword dance and Kargo dance. On the final day of the festival five people representing evils take bath in the river. "Rituals of throwing the effigy symbolizes the end of all bad omens. People take bath in the river on tenth-day of the festival to wash all their evils. It is believed that all the bad omens collected from the villages are thrown in the river and then the New Year begins," Ven Tsering Chosphel, a scholar said.
-Jan 21, 2006