Two festivals, one stage: Dehradun's Gorkha community celebrates Dashain and Diwali together

In Dehradun, at the foot of the Himalayas, two great festivals shared one stage on Sunday. Uttarakhand's chief minister joined the Gorkha Dashain Diwali Mahotsav and state fair, folding Dashain — the fifteen-day festival at the heart of Gorkha and Nepali culture, when elders press a sacred tika mark to younger foreheads and give their blessings — together with Diwali's lights. The Gorkha community's roots in the Doon Valley run generations deep, through its famous regiments and the families who stayed. Around the performances, the state fair gave local traders and artisans stalls, customers and a crowd: a community's heritage, celebrated in public, with the whole city invited.