Kalash famous festival Chitramas concludes
By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The winter festival Chitramas (also called Chowmos) of Kalash people concluded here on Sunday in the Bumburate valleys for two fortnights where a grand ceremony was held where Kalash elites from the other two valley which marks the first day of the Kalash calendar.
The important event of the day was making prediction of prosperity and peace in the valley on the basis of the orientation of fox’s movement set free in the nearby forest while good omens have been forecasted for the year.
A Kalash councilor Saifullah Jan said that the panel of bitans (Kalash religious leaders) drawn from all the three valleys reached at a conclusion that the year will prove a pleasant and bring prosperity and peace.
The groups of men and women who had gone to seclusion at the advent of the second week of the festival as one of the obligations of their dogma, also came out on this occasion who had volunteered to remain in seclusion in the cattle houses to please their gods and goddesses.
Mr. Jan said that the winter festival chitramas makes the Kalash people to prepare themselves for the long and tedious days they passed inside out homes we are confined inside their homes.
Most important from religious point of view, the Chitramas festival attracts very less number of tourists to the valleys partly due to the ban of the entry of non-Kalash to their homes and partly due to the harsh weather.
District Police Officer Lower Chitral Iftikhar Shah told that the festival was held in an ideally peaceful atmosphere while thousands of tourists including the foreigners coming from twenty one different countries were in attendance.
He said that extraordinary measures of security had been taken so as to enable the minorities to celebrate their religious and cultural festival without any fear and make the tourists to enjoy their stay in the dream-come-true valley a memorable one.
