Through the shutter bugs

Puran Bista

Nepal needs no introduction for a nature lover. Its natu ral and snow-capped mountains, landscapes and simplicity of life on the laps of these mountains steal the heart of millions of people. They have attracted millions of people across the world. Passing By, a collection of photographs captured by Jagadish Tiwari and Soren Lauridsen, makes one draw a deep breath after seeing the camera-captured spectacular mountains, landscapes, people and rural Nepal. Any one, whoever sees the Collection, will not only admire but also love to visit some of the places though he may not have the required physical strength to do so.

It took for the duo ten years to capture the beauty of Nepal. Both spent nights, weeks and months to capture the mountains, villages, women, children and elderly people with their naked eyes. "I have visited ten times to capture Annapurna alive. I never had my fill of the beauty of this majestic mountain whenever I visited it. The more you visit, the more beautiful it looks. When you see the changing color along with the shifting sunlight, and the reflection of light on the mountains, you only know how beauty attracts human beings. I cannot explain you here the beauty. You have to see it for yourselves," says Jagadish Tiwari, who always loves to visit the Everest region.

Tiwari has been capturing Nepal with his camera since the early 1980s. He had his photographs published in a number of foreign magazines before he, along with his Danish friend Soren Lauridsen, decided to come up with the collection of photo-pictures about Nepal. Very few Nepalese embark on such a painstaking mission and so far no one, other than Tiwari, has done this. His determination to show Nepal to the outside world with such beautiful pictures is inexplicable. Tiwari alone knows how much time it took him to visit so many places. "Time always remained a factor though I attempted to project Nepal as variant and beautiful as I could", he says.

Tiwari’s co-photographer Soren Lauridsen is also a writer, who has written a guide-book for the Danish about Nepal. Lauridsen has been making frequent visits to Nepal since 1985. The more he visits this country the more it attracts him, he says.

The duo visited Kalpather base camp 19 times in order to capture the landscapes. Tiwari wanted to capture the winter of Machhapuchhre, while Lauridsen wanted to watch the landscape from the base camp.

Tiwari says :"I always took risk, especially when I was 6000 metres above the sea level. The Mount Everest region attracts me. The snow-capped peaks unfold their natural beauty every hour. There are several peaks and each peak significantly steals your heart when you see the natural and feel the loneliness in a place surrounded by snow. Of course, you have to resist the cold and bear the brunt of high altitude but you forget everything when you see the landscape and peaks", he explains his feeling.

Tête-à-tête with artist Karuna Kunwar

Damakant Jayshi

She reminisces seeing the famous honey hunter, Manilal Gurung (Chame Buddha) on the National Geographic magazine and no sooner did she see him, than the man was (re)created on her canvass with her stick and not her brush.

It all began with dabbling colours and drawing images of whatever pleased her mind. Transforming objects into her own creations and giving them vibrancy of her own was what she aimed right since her childhood. Yes, Karuna Kunwar’s love affair with the colours and sketches and images began right since she was a school-going kid.

Now 25, Karuna is teaching the art of colours and drawing in Nobel Academy Higher Secondary School. How does it feel teaching the children? The smiling young artist tells The Sunday Post, "I take it as a hobby and that makes me give 100 per cent to the job at hand." No doubt, she derives the same pleasure in teaching her students the nitty-gritty of the art as when she herself sets out to create something of her own imagination.

Imagination and observation do play a very vital role in shaping up an artist’s expression. When William Wordsworth, one of the greatest English poets of all times, sees smiling daffodils on a bright and cheerful day (all the more bright due to the golden flowers) he goes on to write the famous poem "Daffodils". Similar is the case with all other creators. And Karuna is no exception.

She reminisces seeing the famous honey hunter, Manilal Gurung (Chame Buddha) on the National Geographic magazine and no sooner did she see him, than the man was (re)created on her canvass with her stick and not her brush. (See extreme left). Gurung, incidentally, was also documented by Eric Valli and shown on TV.

An incident that happened in 1998 is still vivid in her memory. She and other artists were in the Pashupati Temple area, painting the surroundings. One of the monkeys who had been watching keenly what she was doing got so excited that it pounced on her materials and took away her brushes and palette and sat on a nearby tree. No amount of cajoling or threat could sway the monkey which had taken fancy to the artist’s goods.

Once she realised that she had it in her to seriously pursue the hobby and almost take it to the level of her profession, she joined Sirjana Contemporary Art Gallery in the capital for the then nine-month full course in art. That was in 1996. Karuna is indebted to her teacher Hariram Jojo, no stranger in the art circle, for what she is today as a painter.

She also expresses her gratitude for P. Puttacharya, the South Indian art teacher who was in Kendriya Vidyalaya in Kathmandu for three years. During the period, Karuna was art teacher in the DAV Sushil Kedia Vishwa Bharati School in Lalitpur. "I learnt a lot from him."

With three group exhibitions already under her belt, Karuna is planning a solo exhibition by the end of this year.

This budding artist is also on the course to becoming a clinical psychologist. Art and psychology going together? One might perhaps think these two do not go together. "There is indeed a strong link between the two streams," explains Karuna.

Some of the tests that they learn about like Thematic Apperception Test, Rorschach Test, Ink Block, among others, help the psychologists in analysing a person. Karuna combines her knowledge of psychology while teaching her students some of whom are reluctant. In fact, the way a child draws a figure and where on the paper he does so, tells her a lot about that child’s psychology.

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