The festival marks the end of the monsoon season and beginning of autumn. More than hundred girls under the age of nine gathered for the tradition of worshiping young pre-pubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy. The ritual holds a strong religious significance in Newar community. It is a community affair held primarily to save small girls from diseases and bad luck in the years to come. Photo: A young Nepalese girl dressed as a Kumari or living Goddess, smiles for camera as she waits for Kumari puja at Hanuman Dhoka, Basantapur Durbar Square in Katmandu, Nepal, Tuesday, September 17, 2013. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

In this March 7, 1991 file photo, a U.S. Marine patrol walks across the charred oil landscape near a burning well during perimeter security patrol near Kuwait City. Twenty five years after the first U.S. Marines swept across the border into Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, American forces find themselves battling the extremist Islamic State group, born out of al-Qaida, in the splintered territories of Iraq and Syria. The Arab allies that joined the 1991 coalition are fighting their own conflicts both at home and abroad, as Iran vies for greater regional power following a nuclear deal with world powers. (Photo by John Gaps III/AP Photo)

Two women enjoy drinks outside a pub in the soho area of central London on November 4, 2020, on the eve of a second novel coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown in an effort to combat soaring infections. English pubs call last orders at the bar for a month on Wednesday evening, as the country effectively shuts down from November 5, for the second time this year to try to cut coronavirus cases. Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted that the lockdown for England would end “automatically” in four weeks, as he tried to placate party critics over the spiralling economic fallout. (Photo by Stephen Lock/i-Images)

A CIT guard carries his gun handgun while bringing a bag containing cash inside an armoured vehicle during a money collection in Johannesburg's CBD, on December 8, 2020. As the Christmas festive season approaches, cash-in-transit (CIT) companies are gearing up as they continue to be target of crime, with about 3000 money vans traveling daily nationwide. Despite the COVID-19 lockdown, there have been 260 cash-in-transit heist incidents in South Africa this year, with 19 CIT crew members killed. Cash-in-transit heists in the country are often military-style planned operations with criminals recurring to bomb making and assault rifles attacks. (Photo by Michele Spatari/AFP Photo)

A handout photo made available by Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) shows veterinarian wearing protective masks and suit, conducting anesthesia procedure on Nenuah, a nine year old Bornean Orangutan before being transported and released to the Bukit Batikap protection forest, at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Rehabilitation Center in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, 15 February 2021. BOSF and the national nature conservation agency (BKSDA) released 10 orangutans back to the wild in Bukit Batikap Protection Forest in Central Kalimantan and the Kehje Sewen Forest in East Kalimantan amid the pandemic according to BOSF. (Photo by BOSF Handout/EPA/EFE)

Model Kendall Jenner presents a creation during the 2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, November 30, 2016. The pulse-quickening, celebrity-filled catwalk event of the year: the Victoria's Secret fashion show takes place in Paris with performances from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. (Photo by Charles Platiau/Reuters)

Mikhail Baburin, 66, talks to his cat Marquis at his house in the remote Siberian village of Mikhailovka, Krasnoyarsk region, Russia, December 5, 2016. Baburin, a former Navy man, barge worker and employee of a military plant in Krasnoyarsk, is the last inhabitant of Mikhailovka, which was founded in the 19th century by migrants from Russia's Mordovia region. He moved in 2000 to Mikhailovka where he was born and has lived there all alone for the last 10 years with only domestic animals. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

James Spears takes his 1964 German built Amphicar for a drive on Lake Mead in Nevada May 6, 2015. Its a journey many drivers dream of, rather than travelling round a lake simply driving through it. But for James Spears it may be time to make the most of the waters in Lake Mead in Nevada, as water levels are plunging as California struggles to cope with a fourthsuccessive year of droughts. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)