Barley Beer in the New Year – Tawang’s Losar Festival

For the Monpa people of Arunachal Pradesh, New Year is when the apricot trees are in full bloom and the most important festival of the community – the Losar Festival – begins. Losar, celebrated with much fanfare and enthusiasm, signals the start of spring and begins on the first day of the lunar calendar. This is one of the best times to be in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, a Monpa majority area, and one of the best kept secrets on a holiday itinerary to the region.

Arunachal Pradesh may not be on everyone’s list of favorite holiday destinations but that’s only because most people think twice about all the passes and permits needed to get there. But give the sunrise state a chance and find an unexpected treat with its lush green surroundings, beautiful monasteries and religious sites. Getting to Tawang is easy and if you are tired of being the regular ‘check-list’ tourist, plan your travel quickly and land right in the midst of the colourful, vibrant Losar Festival.

All about Losar

The Monpas have called Tawang home since 500 BC. Most of them are farmers and nearly everyone is a practicing, devout Buddhist. So its no wonder that the Monpas’ ancient harvest festival that welcomed spring time, at some point, got amalgamated with the Buddhist New Year celebrations of ‘Lo-gsar’ and is celebrated widely today as the Losar Festival. The festival is based on the Tibetan lunar calendar, which assigns an element and an animal to each year and 2013 is the year of the ‘Female Water Snake’.

Losar is celebrated for 3 days, and this year the festival dates will be from February 10 to 12. The festival in Tawang is marked by offering prayers at the Tawang Monastery – the largest one outside of Lhasa – and a lot of merrymaking and partying. The first day of Losar is a quiet one where householders clean up their homes and decorate it with 8 auspicious symbols called Tashi Dargye - the precious umbrella, a victory banner, 2 golden fish, a right coiled white conch shell, a lotus flower, a vase of treasure, the Dharma Wheel and the Eternal Knot. The lady of the house cooks Chaang – a type of highland barley wine, and fills up a bucket of water for the entire family. The family alter is decorated with cookies called Derga, a traditional soup called Guthuk is made for friends and family and everyone dresses up in new clothes to welcome the New Year.

The second day of Losar is reserved for the King and is called Gyalpo Losar. The day is spent visiting friends and family and dancing the Aji Lhamu – a traditional masked, Monpa dance. At night, people burn torches in their homes to ward off evil spirits. The final day of Losar is a somber affair and is spent visiting the local monastery and offering prayers, donating food and clothes, raising flags, making butter sculptures and burning juniper leaves as offerings to God.

Get to Tawang this February and find a new way to celebrate the New Year.