Hello everyone.

Hope everyone is safe out there.

Today is Shrawan 1 of 2077 B.S., first day of Shrawan month according to Nepali date. This day is also known as "Shrawan Sankranti" or "Karkat Sankranti" and most commonly known as "Luto (Scabies) falne diin" in Nepali, which has a great purpose towards human health and promoting use of botanicals for skin problems. 

Shrawan is a month of rainy season after Ashadh. As Ashadh is the month when most of Nepalese are busy on transplanting young seedlings of their major staple food crop, i.e. rice, farmers have to play in mud, soak in heavy rains on farm or maybe get scorched in day sunlight, all for completing this task and ensuring rice in their plates for whole year. This exposure to mud, dirty water and sun burn can result a lot of skin problems like skin allergies, rashes, scabies, abscess and wounds to farmers, especially to young children. 

This day or you can say festival is being celebrated for the day of smearing botanicals of medicinal values which were/are believed to cure such skin problems. Also, people throw burning fire wood shouting against a demon to go away which they believe to trouble small children and take away scabies also along with it. There are many such botanicals which have been believed and also being used since our past in Nepalese culture, such as; Titepati (Mugwort), Kukurdino (Smilax ovalifolia), tiuri (Impatients balsamina), sisnu (Urtica dioecea), Kurilo (Asparagus), etc.

But, nowadays, majority of nepalese, have started to follow Indian culture of wearing green and yellow bangles in their hand, smear mehendi (henna) in their hands (ladies and women do this) and visit temples and pilgrimage sites of Lord Shiva, this process is also known as "Bolbam", which is an Indian culture that entered Nepal about just 2 decades ago. Before this, people use to smear botanicals like tiuri  and  colocasia leaves (for color like that of henna), that I mentioned earlier, in their hands instead of this imported henna packets and bangles, this import is worth of more than 2 billion each year. 

Aren't we ignoring or perhaps many of us are unknown about such valuable botanicals and their importance in human health! 

Green cheers!!

Source of image: green gear