Traditional dancers with their masks look on before their performance during “Nawa Durga Nach” Hindu dance festival in Bhaktapur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on March 28, 2024. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

A girl adorned as a Living Goddess smiles as she takes part in a mass Kumari Puja prayer rituals during Indra Jatra festival in Kathmandu, Nepal on Friday, September 5, 2025. Hundreds of young girls under the age of nine gathered around the temple to offer worship for good luck, protection from evil and prevent from diseases. (Photo by Skanda Gautam/ZUMA Press Wire via Alamy Live News)

Farmers play with mud as they plant rice on “National Paddy Day of Nepal” in Dhading district on June 29, 2024. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

A man transports chicken on a motorscooter to the chicken market in Kathmandu, Nepal, 07 February 2023. Cases of bird flu, or avian influenza, infections have been confirmed in three places in the Kathmandu Valley, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD), causing a drop in sales of chicken in the valley after the spread of the flu news. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA)

Participants from Newar community in traditional attire, takes part in the parade to celebrate Newari New Year that falls during the Tihar festival, also called Diwali, in Kathmandu, Nepal November 12, 2015. The Newar community observes the start of their Newari New Year 1136, in accordance with their lunar calendar, by worshipping their spiritual selves in a ritual known as "mahapuja". (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A woman and a child walk past the remains of collapsed houses damaged during the April 2015 earthquake, in Bhaktapur, Nepal March 18, 2016. The two devastating earthquakes that struck Nepal last year killed almost 9,000 people across the country. Inside the Kathmandu Valley almost 2,000 died, and some of the area's most important cultural and heritage sites were completely destroyed. As Kathmandu inhabitants prepare to mark the one-year anniversary of the event, thousands are still displaced and millions are living in temporary shelters. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)

A Hindu sadhu (holy man) smears coloured paste onto his face ahead of the forthcoming Hindu festival of “Maha Shivaratri” at the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu on February 11, 2018. Hindus mark the “Maha Shivratri” festival by offering special prayers and fasting, with sadhus arriving at Pashupatinath to take part in the event, which takes place on February 13. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

A woman looks out of the window of a house as saris, traditional clothing worn by women, are hanged out to dry in Lalitpur, Nepal on April 17, 2019. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)