Dar Khane Din

According to the Hindu calendar, Bhadra Shukla Pakchya, Dwitiya tithi, a day before the main day of Haritalika Teej, the great Hindu women’s festival, Dar Khane Din is celebrated. During the Teej celebration, the women pray for the good luck of their husband or pray to receive one who will be a good one.  In the parental home (Maiti), it is a custom to prepare sweets and Kheer made up of milk along with selroti and fruits for the initiation of this festival’s fasting. The celebration includes singing and dancing, along with the consumption of savory dishes prepared during this celebration is known as Dar Khane Din in the popular folk language.  

This day is celebrated all over Nepal as well as in some parts of India. On this particular day, the parents invite their daughter, to their parental home and prepare sweets and share their feelings such as joys and sorrows in the same place with the family. This festival is generally celebrated by women. 

The Teej festival is believed to start from this Dar Khane Din, day. The practice of celebrating this Dar Khane Din once a year on this day has helped married women in our Hindu community to reduce or forget the pain of having to spend the rest of their lives with their husbands, leaving behind their home, mother, father, and siblings. Therefore this day helps to increase the love and memory of the family members. Dar Khane Din is more of an entertainment than ritual worship. 

With the advent of modernity, there have been some changes in Dar Khane Din’s eating habits and changes in the dishes from one place to another, but there is not much difference in the essence of its celebration. On the next day, during the main fast of Teej, women do not eat or drink anything they stay late on this preparing delicious dishes and feeding plus eating them. 

It can be seen that this celebration of Dar Khane Din celebrated only by women of the Sanatan Hindu community in the former days is now being celebrated by other women too these days regardless of their Religion and tradition.  To Read this article in the Nepali Language please click here.