A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories; they’re all that’s left you.
- Paul Simon, Bookends, 1968[break]
History begins at home. Retelling Histories is a personal history project that explores this central idea by digging up, archiving, and contextualizing photographs from old family photo albums.
The photographs in this exhibition were collected from a cross-section of Nepali family albums. The stories were written in most cases by the immediate family members of the people pictured in the photographs, or the people who took them – sons and granddaughters and great grandnephews – telling stories from their own personal histories and reclaiming a long overshadowed collective past.
Some photographs do not have texts. We do not know the names of the people in them, where they were taken, the time or occasion.
This lack of information leaves us to the devices of our imaginations, colored by our memories and assumptions. It paves the path for a fictitious journey, challenging us to imagine what life must have been like then, and to reflect beyond our limited knowledge of history while confronting us with the complexities of everyday life.
The project is part of the Nepal Picture Library, a photo archive that has been recently set up by photo.circle. The Nepal Picture Library hopes to contribute to the study of Nepali photography, as well as generate knowledge and raise questions about how we can explore issues of memory, identity, and history through images.
A selection of work from the project is being exhibited from September 16-18 at Manga Hiti in Patan Durbar Square as part of the Kathmandu Literary Jatra.
For more information please visit www.photocircle.com.np
JALESHWOR, NEPAL, 1956
Photo and text contributed by Rabi Thapa
A dream childhood photo. Half a dozen kids atop a benevolent painted elephant. I didn’t even realise it was my mother up front until she pointed it out. The year was 1956, so Jana Rayamajhi would have been seven years old. She had travelled down from Kathmandu with her mother and a brace of cousins to the army barracks at Jaleshwor, in Mahottari district.
Her uncle was a Colonel there, so they had managed to cadge a lift on a plane.
The trip back was more fraught. They crossed the border with India, took a train to Raxaul, then were portered back to Kathmandu via Bhimphedi in typical upper middle class fashion. “Our porters raced each other,” my mother recalls. “Your grandmother travelled more sedately in a palanquin.”
SHILLONG,INDIA,11 NOVEMBER, 1939
Photo and text contributed by Muna Gurung
Ama found this photograph in the attic of my grandparents’ old home in Jaare Khola, Parbat, tucked away with old clothes and dried corn. Soon the photo appeared everywhere. It was enlarged and framed and hung under the big clock in the living room. Another copy of it also sat on the altar in the prayer room, right in between the statues of Avalokiteshvara and Padmasambhava. There was one in the flap of the coffee table photo album and two more copies, each stuffed in an envelope, ready to be sent out to Aama’s siblings.
When relatives visited, Aama would point out how tall her mother had been for a village woman or laugh at the matching mini-adult striped suits her brothers wore, or comment on how royal her father looked. She would reveal something new about the photo each time. Last year, she told me how baajey’s land, house, and medals were all divided between his two sons and how my mamas had sold baajey’s belongings to curators that sifted through villages, all for 10,000 rupees.
This summer, Krishna Mama gave Aama a new version of the picture. He had Aama’s headshot clumsily photoshopped onto it, a spurious proof of connection. “Well, you’re in the photo now,” I’d said to her as a joke. Although we laughed at its tackiness, I know she will always make space on our walls, albums, shelves for new copies.
Maybe it makes this photo feel less like it is the only one of her parents, or maybe each reproduction is an opportunity for a new story.
PURNA STUDIO, HAKHA, MANGAL BAZAAR, 1969
Photo and text contributed by Erisha Suwal
“I must’ve been eight then,” my mother says as she inspects the photo through her glasses. “I put on a dress and a red velvet coat that my father had bought for me. He worked at Narayanhiti Palace for King Mahendra and had seen such dresses. I put on a hair band and stockings. Your grandmother put on kajal and tika for me. I even put on dhungris.” Dhungris are traditional Newari earrings.
My mother was pampered because she was the first child to survive following the early deaths of five of her siblings. She remained the only child until she was ten, when her sister was born.
Bishnu Maya, my grandmother, is decked out in lots of jewellery. Her ears are hidden under five or six pairs of earrings. She is wearing a gold necklace that is partly visible under her sari, bangles, and rings. “Look, your grandmother is wearing a watch!” my mother exclaims. All the accessories, the coat, and the stockings were status symbols.
The photograph was taken in Purna Studio in Hakha, Mangal Bazaar, in 1969. The studio backdrop of a chateau-style interior gives the photo an aristocratic feel. My mother and grandmother pose in a style similar to that of Rana photos of the time.
CHOBHAR, KIRTIPUR, 1956
Photo and text contributed by Rishi Amatya
It was a bad day to begin with, that day in 1956. The clouds forecast rain, and Juni Amatya feared the family picnic would be ruined. But when the rain held off all morning, she prepared for the trip with the help of her younger brothers. Though the day was overcast, the journey to the Jal Binayak Temple in Chobhar was a pleasant one. It wasn’t to stay that way for long.
“It rained the moment we reached Chobhar,” she says. “We rushed inside the pati, where we were serenaded by the raging Bagmati. We were worried because we had planned for rain, but not for a flood.”
The rain made it impossible to do anything outside. “Everyone’s mood was rained out,” Juni remembers. “We chose to stay inside and play cards.”
After a half-hearted attempt at a lunch of soggy beaten rice and tasteless chwoela, Juni had had enough. She borrowed an umbrella and walked down to the banks of the Bagmati. It was then that she noticed a small bird fluttering above the water. “It was dancing with the river,” Juni says. “I was amazed. The bird would flutter around, trying to match the wax and wane of the rapids. It was a fantastic sight.”
After a while, the bird flew past the rapids and through the gorge. “I made my way back after that,” she says, “too eager to tell everyone the story about the bird that just lifted up my spirit.”
CIRCA 1900
Text and photo contributed by Rashmi Sheila
This picture of Major Sadhu Ram Shrestha was taken between 1900 and 1910, during Chandra Shumsher’s rule. His dress had gold buttons on it. He helped his brothers Hiralal and Ganga Ram find work as aclerk in the durbar and as a revenue officer respectively. They were a well-off family, with a house and two ropanis of land in Bhimsensthan.
Sadhu Ram, Hiralal and Ganga Ram got very drunk at a feast. Somebody tricked them into putting their fingerprints on a piece of paper. With that foolish act, they lost all of their possessions and became homeless overnight. The three brothers separated. Sadhu Ram rented a house near Basantapur, Hiralal stayed in a sattal for a while and left for a new rented place, and Ganga Ram migrated to Birgunj.
The clan was scattered, relatives estranged. Today, most of us do not recognize each other. We are Sadhu Ram’s line, and our relatives still blame the three inebriated brothers for their separation from each other.
OM BAHAL, KATHMANDU, 1930
Photo contributed by Mukunda Bahadur Shrestha
Text contributed by Nayan Pokharel Sindhuliya
This photo from 1930 was taken by the Tha Hiti-based photographer Sanucha Pahalman in Kaji Narayan Bhakta Mathema’s house. The house in Om Bahal, which is maintained by Narayan Bhakta’s great-grandchildren, was the site for numerous family gatherings, including occasional photo sessions.
Most of the family photos in Mukunda Shrestha’s collection are strikingly repetitive – it was always the male members of the family in one group, and then the women and children. Very rarely were the members of an entire family seen in one picture. Pictures of couples are also rare.
The Kajini – Narayan Bhakta’s wife, sitting in the centre – and her womenfolk were affluent housewives who kept maids and helpers. The woman carrying a child in the last row, second from right, was one of the Kajini’s maids who looked after the newborns in the family. Most maids came from the same family and served through generations in the Mathema family.
The Mathema women, who largely stayed away from the administrative lives of their men, were mostly religious types who made regular pilgrimages to many temples around the Kathmandu Valley. “It felt like there was a puja every other day,” Mukunda Shrestha recalls of his childhood.
Women spent most of their time raising their children. According to Shrestha, the children felt more comfortable with their mothers and aunts. “We were very afraid to ask our fathers when we needed something,” he says.
TATO PANI, NEPAL 2027 B.S. 91969/70 APPX)
Photo and text contributed by Shrijana Shrestha
This is a picture of my mother, with her two best friends at Tato Pani taken in the year 2027 B.S. Tato Pani was a popular site to visit in those days as it is today. Shankhardev College, where Aama studied, had planned on taking its students for a picnic there. Aama wouldn’t go anywhere without her two best friends.
Aama tells me that there was a trend of wearing Shiffon saris in college, so Aama and her friends decided to wear saris for the picnic. They saved a total of Rs 500 from their pocket money to buy those saris, especially for the picnic.
Being very shy, Aama and her two friends would run away from cameras. One of her friends, Ajay, who used to tease them by calling them “The Three Jalparis” planned to take their photos by strategically placing the river in the background so that their nicknames would have life.
Aama once told me that Tato Pani is such a divine spring that it has the power to get rid of physical deformities and provide loads of energy. Whenever she shows me this photo, she says, “Chhori, I feel 17 again.”
Hearing her nostalgic words, in some corner of my heart, I feel her pain of not being able to enjoy her youth now, because she can’t go back to that moment. So when Aama sees this photo, she remembers her youth. But when I see this photo, I recall the slogan that my Nepali teacher, Miss Ambika, used a lot in class, “Maukaa aunchha parkhindaina; bageko khola farkindaina.” Years later, I would read the line, “we can’t step twice in the same river,” in Sophie’s World. And I guess that’s what happens in everyone’s life.
Aama realizes this fact today that she can’t be 17 again and nor can she go back to the same Tato Pani because the waters she washed in have long flowed elsewhere.
KIEV, UKRAINE, 1974
Photo and text contributed by Saurav Kiran Shrestha
It was 1974 when my uncle, my dad’s youngest brother, Tripur Sundar Shrestha, posed for this picture. He was 21 years old at the time. The picture was taken in a dormitory in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. My uncle tells me his pose was inspired by the Indian actor Rishi Kapoor whose movie “Bobby” he had just watched in Ukraine in the Russian language. My uncle wanted to become a movie actor but his brother saw no scope in that field and directed him to study law instead.
Today, the Republic of Soviet Union has become a chapter in history books. Ukraine became an independent country in 1991. Likewise, Nepal has also gone through various political changes from the Panchayat system to multiparty democracy system to federal democratic republican system.
History suggests that change is inevitable. But it also shows that it repeats itself. Nepal is celebrating 2011 as Nepal Tourism Year. The poster in the picture reads Visit Nepal. Today, 37 years later, perhaps there are Nepali students around the world with similar posters up on their walls.
My uncle joined the Gorkhapatra Sansthan when he returned from Ukraine. The field of media was not compatible to his interest in cinema or his academic qualification in law. But he worked at Gorkhapatra for years. Though his dream to become an actor was never fulfilled, he is living out William Shakespeare’s saying that life is a drama and the world is a stage. My uncle is playing his part in the real world-stage as a leading actor performing his part of life’s script.
TANDERI DHUNGA, ENROUTE TO ABUGAON, NEPAL 1968
Photo contributed by Govinda Adhikari
Text contributed by Prawin Adhikari
My father Govinda Adhikari took this picture of my mother Makhan Devi, left, and her childhood friend Cham Maya, right, at the tanderi dhunga—the young men’s stone—on the way to Abu village from Khaireni. My parents were born next door to each other and married young.
Cham Maya was married off into the harsh life of the Gorkhali village of Cyangling. My mother and Cham Maya were climbing up to Abu and my father was climbing down when they happened to meet at tanneri dhungo, where my father insisted upon taking a photograph.
This is among the very few photographs of my mother’s friends, all of whom were married off young to villages at least half a day away, if not half a few days’ walk removed from their parental village, and the support of their friends. The Nepali woman’s lot was to be cut off from everything familiar at a young age, to be sent to slave away in households where they were often no more than chattel to work the fields.
More than family, friends were lost: this severance must have added to the loneliness and despair of a young woman reduced to mere property, bereft of voice. At least, the joys of unexpected and rare reunions like this rekindled old friendship, and allowed daughters and sisters and wives to exist outside the parameters so strictly drawn by a patriarchal system.
ROYAL PHOTO STUDIO, NEW ROAD, KATHMANDU, CIRCA 1970
Photo and text contributed by Sweta Baniya
“We were born on the same day, in the same hour, so our parents decided to make us meet – lifelong friends,” says Thulbaba, my Dad’s elder brother. A meeteri is a culturally sanctioned bond, wherein two people exchange oaths to become lifelong friends and to adopt each other’s family.
Samba Khatri and Thulbaba grew up together in Thankot. “We played marbles even when we’d quarrelled,” my uncle says. “We would have our backs to each other and ask, ‘Khelne ho?’ Wanna play? And we would play, in silence.”
The young men are twenty years old in this picture taken at the Royal Photo Studio in New Road, almost four decades ago. They had come to watch the Ghode Jatra festival at Tundikhel. But after taking this picture they went home without watching the festival. Why? Thulbaba does not remember.
Long hair that covered the ears was in fashion at the time. “My hair was curly, so it does not seem long. But Meet-jiu’s was straight and looked like a lady’s,” he says. Polyester shirts with big collars were always worn with bellbottoms. The young people of Thankot ardently followed Bollywood fashion.
As best buddies, they each had a copy of this photo hanging on a wall at home. But once Thulbaba’s meet dropped out of school, the friendship faded. Their lifelong bond was reduced to greeting each other when they met occasionally. Just when Thulbaba thought he would rebuild their friendship, his Meet-jiu, Samba Khatri, died an untimely death.
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