The yearly festival of the procession of the unwieldy 65-foot tall wooden chariot honouring the Buddhist deity Rato Machhendranath is the country’s greatest cultural spectacle. But even as they celebrate, Nepalis know that the failure of the chariot procession to complete the journey has bode calamity. As devotees will recount, chariot accidents have signaled the tumultuous events of recent years, from the palace massacre and the Peoples’ Movement, to what appears to be the eclipse of Nepal’s royal line as well as the entrance of the Maoist rebels into the government following a 11-year war. What will the Red God bode, regarding the country’s fragile transition to peace and democracy?
