"It's not about dogma or rules," Hawker said. "People relate to her as a divine being but also as a child: they pray to her, but afterwards they sit and joke with her. There is something very comforting about worshipping a child, something about the cycle of life, about renewal."
The goddesses are busiest in late fall, during the festival of Dasain. The royal goddess in Katmandu and the other in Patan live in varying degrees of seclusion. Sajani has the most normal life, blessing those who show up, but also playing with friends and going to school, where she is treated with respect, though not assured of straight A's, Whitaker said.
In Yedwab's class, the children wanted to know whether a goddess lived like them. "What does she like to do for fun?" one girl asked.
She plays hide-and-seek, computer games, watches Hindi films and, as the film shows, fiddles with a toy cell phone sometimes when she is on her throne.
"Are there boy gods?" a boy asked.
There are, but they are not worshipped like the girls. "And one day a year, all the girls are worshipped as goddesses," Whitaker told the children. A collective "harrumph" rose from the American boys.
The film was made from 2005 to 2006, and it captures a Nepal that was roiled by protests against the monarchy and demands for establishing a democracy. The same people who took part in protests against the king also worship Sajani, Hawker said. But as Nepal modernizes and changes, Whitaker noted, parents are less keen for their daughters to become goddesses.
"The potency of the cult diminishes," she said.
Sajani knows she has only a few years left before she must retire. She says she would like to be a teacher someday, but she cries with her mother over the loss of her life as a goddess.
"When I'm not a goddess anymore," she said, "no one will treat me as well as they treat me now."
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