KATHMANDU: Nepali month Shrawan (July 17 to August 17) is considered holy for Hindu women. During the month, women wear green bangles, color their hands with mehandi and put on green accessories. Married women fast on Mondays for the longevity of their husbands while unmarried girls for ideal husbands.

Theses days, cosmetics shops and mehandi art galleries are chock-a-block with Hindu women and girls. It is believed that if they fast on Mondays of the month and put on mehandi, green clothes, bangles and pote, their husbands will live longer, stay healthy and wealthy.

It is gradually developing as a culture to observe Shrawan as a holy month in Nepal. According to statistics maintained by the Department of Customs, mehandi powder worth Rs 2.476 billion was imported in the fiscal year 2075/76. The demand of mehandi has been increasing in the Nepali markets, of late.

Most of the cosmetics (95 %) comes from India while the rest is imported from China and Germany, said Shishir Ghimire, information officer of the Department of Customs.

Similarly, in the fiscal year 2075/76, tika, bangles and pote worth Rs 54.5 have been imported.