Five days · one endless light
May this Tihar fill your home with light and your year with people who feel like home. There is a story in these five days — scroll slowly.
A wish for
Walk into the festivalThe story
For five days, as the year turns dark and cold, we are asked to make room for light. First the birds are fed. Then the guardians are honoured. Then the mothers. Then the goddess. And on the last day, the people we love are marked with colour and promised that they will never face the year alone.
Day one Kag Tihar
Before a single lamp is lit, we feed the crows. They are the first to wake, the first to carry news across the valley. To honour them is to admit a quiet truth: we are all connected by what we pass on. A kind word travels farther than we think.
Tap each crow to offer a grain of rice.
Three crows wait on the wire. They seem to know something.
Day two Kukur Tihar
On the second day, dogs are garlanded and marked with tika. Not because they are gods, but because they have already been something better: loyal without condition. The dog at your door has guarded your sleep, your secrets, your bad days. Today, you guard its dignity.
Tap the dog to place a marigold garland.
The dog sits at the gate, tail sweeping the dust.
Day three Gai Tihar & Laxmi Puja
The cow is honoured as a mother — for milk, for patience, for the quiet work of keeping a household alive. By evening the house is washed, the threshold is decorated, and lamps are set at every door. Laxmi does not enter a house that is only rich. She enters where someone has bothered to make room — with light, with cleanliness, with care.
Light all five diyos. Each flame is a welcome.
Five diyos wait in the dark. The mandala is holding its breath.
Day five Bhai Tika
On the final day, sisters draw a seven-coloured tika on their brothers' foreheads and tie a thread of protection around their wrists. The old story says Yamuna kept her brother Yama waiting until the tika was complete — and death, for once, was patient. The meaning is simpler: I will stand in the way of anything that comes for you. Brothers return the blessing. Chosen family counts too.
Tap the portrait to receive the tika and the blessing.
A sister's hand hovers, seven colours on her fingertips.
The river of lights
Light has a way of travelling. Set a diyo adrift and let it carry what you cannot say out loud — a hope, a name, a small unfinished prayer.
Each lamp carries a quiet wish.
The last lamp
May this Tihar leave a lamp burning in every corner you call home — and may you always find your way back to it.
Each tap brings a new blessing into the room.