Asa’s eyes, ice, ear, the roof, tree, mountains, and the sky. Just stop and listen. “Like clouds,” says Asa, as she quietly lets her tongue melt on a small ball of bliss under the dry sun.

Unwashed in the flame of colours - Rita is a girl aged 8, who lives in a relatively prosperous home compared to the girls in VDCs. The depth and consistency in her observations of the world in a busy marketplace was what caught me. When I was looking at her in my camera, she stared at me with such intensity that I nearly forgot to press the shutter. Later, when I walked up to her to ask her why she had looked at me in such a way, she simply answered me with another long, burning stare. But this time I didn’t pull back. Instead, I looked right into her colourful brown eyes. She didn’t stop either; she was reading my face. I mumbled a lot of things like “Namaste” and “You are beautiful”, and she eventually let out a second of grin. But I never saw a girl so silent yet loud in her existence, as if she was shouting to the world that she was alive and she was seeing things.

One of the very few that stood out from the floras with her powerful existence. One of the very few that were entirely uninterested in our team and the cameras. In familiar sleeves from Korea is Laxmi.

After her mother washes her, she reluctantly puts oil on her hair and scalp for protection from the dry air. The sweet smell of herb, rose and goat milk.

Vibrance follows every family, but especially this family. The boy, Parthen Thille Tamang, yet to walk, is sat down to enjoy the sun by his umma. Yesterday I realized mother in Nepalese is the same as mother in Korean, "umma".

“Doesn’t it tire you out?” When I asked a lady returning home after her daily laundry and washing has finished, she answers by pointing at the mountain behind her with a flash of smile.

The Story of Maya is displayed at the bottom of this page.

The poem 'Maya' is displayed at the bottom of this page.

"Hasnei!" Hasnei means smile in Nepalese. Three different kinds of hasnei.

A cherubic band of children stand, their backs to a fenced playground and the village rising on the Himalayan slope beyond. They stand, with so much mirth.

The siblings sit for a serious family photo. But as soon as one sounds a snort, everyone explodes.

The boys had what would only just qualify as a match. Across a concrete slab, the two professional table-tennis players pass to each other the ball.

The flower garden of Gatlang village, consisting of the young and beautiful, unmarried girls.

There is no point asking the kids if they are siblings; they all share the same last name of Tamang. They are all brothers and sisters.

S T O R Y  O F  M A Y A

P O E M : " M A Y A "

P R E P A R I N G  F O R  T H E  E X H I B I T I O N