Practice of threshing paddy in dhiki-okhal disappearing

The Tharu community used to thresh paddy in dhiki and the people living in the hilly region okhal. Dhiki and okhal were present in every house.

Currently, the mills of Kutani-Pisani have come into operation in some places and it has become rare to see dhiki and okhal. Tej Bahadur Shah informed that the practice of threshing paddy in dhiki and okhal is declining as it takes a lot of labor and time. He said, "Women from large families had to work very hard. Only they used to thresh paddy. Currently, the workload of women has decreased after the operation of the mill.”

He said that paddy is threshed in dhiki and okhal for four to five days. "Women used to get up early in the morning and thresh paddy," said Sumni Chaudhary. "Those were difficult days for the women of the Tharu community."

A woman with a large family had to get up at 12 o'clock at night and thresh paddy. One day of threshed rice was enough for only two days. "We had to work together to thresh paddy,” he says. Nowadays, it seems like a dream when he remembers when he had to do the housework all day without getting enough sleep at night. In dhiki, two to four people had to work to thresh paddy.

"In the past, during the festivals of Dashain, rice had to be beaten and soaked in flour again," said Kallu Dhakher. "So we used to make rice and flour from rice in the home-made dhiki. ”

According to Kaluram Dagora, there is a tradition of singing between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law while threshing paddy. The mother-in-law used to ask questions to the daughter-in-law in order to win.