The religious rituals of Chhath, the great festival of the Terai-Madhesh region, have begun on Saturday. The devotees have started the religious and traditional rituals of this festival with the 'Nahakhay' ritual on Saturday.

After bathing and purifying their bodies and minds, they eat gourd vegetables and rice. Since the devotees eat gourd vegetables as the purest vegetables, the demand for gourd is high on this day. The devotees and their family members do not eat meat and fish or other impure foods until the Chhath festival is over.

The devotees who perform the ‘Nahakhaya’ ritual on Saturday will eat ‘Rasyau Roti’ on Sunday evening. In this religious ritual, also called ‘Kharna’, the devotees worship the Chhathi Mata at their homes and eat kheer (Rasyau) and puri cooked with milk and honey. Other family members and friends and neighbors are also invited to the Rasyau Roti as a prasad. It is also customary for those who have not received an invitation from anywhere and have not had the opportunity to eat Rasyau Roti to ask the devotees and eat this prasad.

Dheeraj Bhandari, a resident of Reshamkothi, who arrived in Birgunj from the federal capital Kathmandu to celebrate Chhath, said that this festival brings joy and happiness to the entire Terai Madhesh. People who are working and studying in various cities in the country and abroad often return home on this festival.

Subhadra Mishra, a devotee of Tejarath Tol in Birgunj, said that the devotees who ate Rasya Roti on Sunday evening will observe a waterless/non-food fast on Monday based on this. ‘On Monday evening, the devotees and all their family members will reach the attractive Chhathi Ghat built in a pond, river, lake etc. near their homes,’ she said. ‘On Tuesday morning, after offering argh to the rising sun at the Ghat and completing the puja, the fast will be broken only by eating prasad and breaking the strict fast.’

It is customary for the devotees’ family members, dressed in new clothes, to carry a bamboo basket containing the puja materials on their heads to the Ghat. Especially the male members of the family fulfill this responsibility. On Monday evening, at Chhath Ghat, the devotees will offer various puja items including coconuts in bamboo baskets to the setting sun. After that, they will sit on the ghat for hours and devote themselves to worship. Some devotees return home at night and perform the ritual of filling the koshi in the courtyard.

It is believed that this ritual of worshipping a clay elephant will fulfill the wishes of the devotees. When the koshi is filled in this way, family members, relatives, and neighbors also come there to worship there. The devotees who are staying at the ghat have the custom of chanting the same bhajans throughout the night.

A special type of flour dough that is offered during this festival will be cooked in the households of the devotees throughout the day and evening on Sunday. The devotees and their family members will be busy in this work. While cooking the prasad in this way, care is taken to be very clean and pure.

Wheat is currently being dried in the homes of devotees to obtain flour used for making delicious rotis and prasad. It is believed that even if birds peck at the wheat dried in this way, it becomes impure, so devotees and their family members sit and chew the wheat in the sun. When birds peck at the wheat, the wheat is washed and dried. There is a huge crowd of people buying Chhath festival supplies in Birgunj Bazaar and other rural markets in the district. There is also a crowd of people buying new clothes in cloth shops.

For the Chhath festival, the ghats of Ghadiarwa, Ranighat, Nagwa, Murli etc. in Birgunj have been decorated like a bride. Chhath ghats have been prepared in almost all the villages in the rural areas of the district. Due to the electrical installation in Ghadiarwa Pond, this pond has started to attract a crowd of visitors in the evening.