Khokana

.. small traditional Newari village that I captured during its water crises..

I went to visit this beautiful place with a local photojournalist Lux Ngakhusi, who lives close by with his family. As much as I complained about the early hour Lux set up for us to visit Khokana, I was grateful to him for that decision later on..

As sad as it is for a late sleeper like me to admit, great things do happen in the morning..

H2O

Kumari

Another day another festival.. That is how I felt about a month ago when I shot one after another..

This festival was continuation of Rato Machendranath journey that I presented in an earlier blog (http://picturingnepal.blogspot.com/2010/07/festival-of-rato-machhendranath.html)

For the first time I saw the living goddess of Nepal - Kumari who always attends this event. For the public this is one of the limited opportunities to actually see her.

Large portion of the parliament was present as well and even the president of Nepal - Ram Baran Yadav, showed up for his annual blessings.

Pullahari Monastery

I can't even describe with words how incredibly beautiful this place is..

Bittersweet..

I took this photograph today at Pashupatinath - most important Hindu temple in Nepal, while working on one of my stories about Laxmi and her four children (on the right).

On their day off they decided to come to this crematorium site to see monkeys and enjoy the up hill walk with variety of views.

Before we left the place, we watched kids playing in the sacred (and heavily polluted) Bagmati river while dead bodies were burned on cremation ghats in the background.

Many of these kids spend their time not just playing in the water but also mostly searching for gold and coins that fall of from the cloths that are wrapped around the dead bodies before the cremation.

While editing, I realized that this image sums it all up for me.

The way I feel about Nepal..

Kopan Monastery

When I left Boudha (see earlier post) I continued on my monastery hunt to the next stop - Kopan. When I entered its gate I saw couple boys, monks, playing with plastic guns and few others seated close by, drinking tea. Some tourists and students who stay at the site were mingling around but over all, the entire place was very quiet.

Kopan felt very isolated, almost unfriendly and till today I wonder why.. Interesting fact I read afterwards, supposedly Lama Tenzin Osel Rinpoche, Spanish boy, who was declared the reincarnation of the founder of Kopan who died in 84’, was inspiration for Bernardo Bertolucci’s film Little Buddha.