Mero Dhangadhi

hey! ehats the difference bertwern chaubandi choli and gunyo cholo?

As far as I know, Gunyo Cholo is a ceremony/ritual thing for women coming of age. I had my Gunyo Cholo, coming of age ceremony for women, when I was 9 or 10 ish (the age was picked randomly for us..gunyo cholo is not mandatory in my family as far as I know) and my mom put a saree and chaubandi cholo on me and my sister, we did some Puja, worshiped Kumari at our local community Kumari temple and ate delicious food, and that was it. So I think Chaunbadi Cholo is the clothing you wear to your Gunyo Cholo ceremony. You can wear it other times too…this was just an example. (Correct me if I’m wrong!)

what are some typical dashain card games? do you know the names?

There are so many! It is tradition to gamble during Dashain and it is actually a bit part of our culture. I’ll just list a few:

• Marriage: One of the most famous game for Dashain, and I have no idea what the rules are. I asked my parents the rules when I was a kid and they said “you have to be married to know about it since the game is called ‘marriage’”, and me being an angelic little kid didn’t question it. There’s a Wikipedia page for it.  
  
• Open Faras: Dealer deals 3 cards around the circle, and typically you would bet depending on how good you hand is. 1st round, dealer deals (face up..hence the “open”) one card to each person, then people put their money in and so on. Whomever has the highest card wins the round and takes the money. 3 of the same card is #1, followed by color & run (4,5,6 all of spades let’s say), followed by run only, followed by 3 of the same color, followed by 2 of the same card, and in the bottom is the highest card (Ace is highest and 2 is lowest). 
• Closed Faras: Similar idea to open faras except now dealer deals 3 cards face down and you can start betting “blind” (ie you leave the cards face down and don’t look at it). You’ll put less money in compared to the people who have seen their cards. Betting goes on, until everyone except the last plays gives up their hand or two people do a “show” and then whomever had the highest card wins the game. It’s a great game to play in a giant group of people!  
• Kitty: One of my favorites. 9 cards are dealt out to 4 people, and the players organize their cards into 3 sets of three. Your best set is put on top, second best in 2nd and 3rd in the last round. After everyone has organized their hands, you do a show for each round, so out of the 4 players whomever has the highest set per round wins the round. If you win two rounds in a row, you win the game (and the money if money is involved). If you win all three rounds then you win a “salami” (meaning salute), and people have to give you extra money. If no one wins two in a row, then the money from this game goes to the next one until someone wins. 
• Joot Patti: Great game for kids. You organize your hands into pairs and each player takes turn picking cards from the deck and discarding un-necessary cards until someone has pairs for all cards in their hands. (No gambling invovled)
• Gulam Chor: Also a good game for kids and to play in big groups. In the beginning of the game you hide one card without looking at it. Then you deal out the entire deck and everyone find pairs for each card in their hands and you pick cards from the other person and go around the group. Game ends when one person doesn’t have a pair for their cards (as one card is hidden). That person is the “chor” (theif). We used to play this win my cousins (there’s 11 of us) and the chor would have to sing or dance or do something embarrassing..some sort of a funny “punishment”.  

There are many others like, in-between, kauda (played with seashells not a cardgame) is very very famous, langur poorja…just to name a few.