With Diwali and Chhath just around the corner, Janakpurdham in Dhanusha district has slipped into full festive mode, with the cleaning of ponds, reservoirs and market areas gathering pace across the historic city. According to local reports carried by Rato Pati and Pradesh Khabar, the preparations are aimed at celebrating Chhath, a festival deeply tied to the religious, cultural and social identity of Mithilanchal, in an organised and grand manner. Markets across the area have also come alive, with activity rising steadily as residents begin their shopping for the twin festivals that fall within days of each other.

Ponds and reservoirs get a festive scrub

The most visible part of the preparations is unfolding along the water bodies for which Janakpurdham is known. Cleaning of the city's ponds and reservoirs has begun, with the drive intended to have the ghats ready before devotees arrive in large numbers for the Chhath rituals. The reports indicate that the effort covers both the sacred water bodies and the market areas around them, so that the city presents a clean and welcoming face for the celebrations.

The significance of the ponds is hard to overstate. Chhath is inseparable from water: at the climax of the observance, devotees stand in ponds or rivers and offer arghya, ritual offerings, to the setting sun on one evening and to the rising sun the following morning. For worshippers who will observe rigorous fasts and then wade into the water to make their offerings, clean and well-kept banks are not a cosmetic concern but a matter of dignity for the rituals themselves.

Janakpurdham, revered by Hindus as the birthplace of Goddess Sita and long regarded as the cultural heart of the Mithila region, is dotted with ponds and reservoirs that carry deep religious meaning. It is at these water bodies that the city's collective devotional life comes to the surface during Chhath, which is why the current campaign is being read as more than routine municipal housekeeping. The groundwork so far includes:

  • Cleaning of ponds and reservoirs ahead of the Chhath rituals
  • Sprucing up of market areas across Janakpurdham
  • A visible rise in commercial activity as the festivals approach

Chhath, the heartbeat of Mithilanchal

Chhath holds a place in Mithilanchal that few other festivals can match. Spread over several days, the observance is dedicated to the worship of the Sun God and Chhathi Maiya, with devotees preparing traditional offerings and gathering at the ghats in the evening and at dawn to complete the rituals. Homes ring with folk songs sung for the occasion, and families and neighbours often cook and celebrate together, giving the festival a strongly communal character that is central to its cultural weight in the region.

The festival's importance in Mithila goes beyond religion. It is a social occasion that draws relatives home, brings entire neighbourhoods to the pond banks and, for many households across the Tarai, marks one of the most demanding and most cherished acts of devotion of the year. That is the context in which the Janakpurdham preparations are taking place, as the city readies its most cherished public spaces for one of the region's most significant festivals.

Diwali, which falls shortly before Chhath, adds its own glow to the season. Celebrated as the festival of lights, it traditionally fills homes, shops and pond banks with lamps and decorations. In a city so closely associated with the story of Goddess Sita, the arrival of the two festivals in quick succession lends the season a particularly strong religious resonance, and the reports note that the preparations in Janakpurdham take both celebrations into account.

Markets hum with festive trade

The festive mood is equally evident in commerce. Markets in and around Janakpurdham have seen increased activity as the festivals near, with the twin celebrations arriving within days of each other and concentrating the season's shopping into a short, intense window. The pre-Diwali and pre-Chhath stretch is traditionally among the busiest periods of the trading calendar in the Tarai, when households buy lamps, decorative lights, sweets, new clothes and the ingredients used in festive offerings.

Busier bazaars also mean livelier streets, and the reports describe market areas that are visibly bustling as the festivals draw closer. For a city whose economy is closely woven into its festival calendar, the surge in trade is a familiar and welcome rhythm of the season, running in parallel with the cleaning drives at the ponds and reservoirs.

An organised, grand celebration in sight

The stated aim behind the preparations, according to the local reports, is to celebrate Chhath in an organised and grand manner. Clean ghats, tidy market areas and a city gearing up for worship together point to preparations that go beyond decoration and speak to the practical needs of the devotees who will gather at the water's edge.

As the lamps of Diwali give way to the dawn offerings of Chhath, Janakpurdham, the historic capital of Mithila in Dhanusha, appears set to host the festivals at the very heart of the tradition that sustains them, in surroundings polished, quite literally, for the occasion.