Life on Sale; Death is Free

How do you feel when your beloved is taken from you? How do you feel when your roof is taken from you? How do you feel when what belongs to you is taken from you? How do you feel when everything in this world is standing against you? And how do you feel when even your tears leave you; the sorrow and frustrations resides in you? Suicide, it is the easy way out for all the problems that’s killing you alive. When life seems hard to live, death seems easy to face. Today, suicide is very popular among the lower economic citizens who are facing threaten of sustaining life day by day. Every other day there is news of suicide or death due to poor economic condition.

 A 25 year old Ramita Chaudhary of Bara killed her two innocent children and committed suicide in 18^th March 2012. She was having hard time managing money for different household purposes and she even had a debt to be paid with her neighbors. She couldn’t even sum up Rs.130 for the children’s fund that was established by the women of village for the education of children. Therefore, she was suffering mentally due to such financial problems and the condition of family. At such moment, killing the children and committing suicide was much easier for her than to face all these problems. She strangled her 3 year old son Kundan and eight month old daughter Sugandha to death, and then hung herself. The heart of mother had to lose in front of cruelty of time and money. It was poverty that led her towards such wickedness.

Poverty has compelled many other families to suicide. In February 2011, Dal Bahadur Oli’s entire family committed suicide because of very obvious reason that is abject poverty. 27 year old daughter of Oli was suffering from epilepsy and the family didn’t have money for her treatment. Hence life became expensive for them and the death was the only thing that they can afford. On the same year, in month of July, Shibhati Chaudhary of Rautahat convinced her three children aged- 11, 9 and 5 to commit suicide with her by jumping into the Bagmati River. The mother survived but fortunately or unfortunately, all of the three children died. It was not mother who asked her children to commit suicide but it was poverty.

Not only suicides, there are also other various cases of death due to poverty. A 9 year old boy Samundra Pariyar is suffering from hydrocephalous (an increase of cerebrospinal fluid around the brain) which is can be cure only by operation otherwise the child can hardly live a year. Lot of money has been spent over his treatment and again two lakh is required for his operation.  His family is already under a huge debt and again his life asks for another 2 lakh for his survival. If only they can sum up Rs.2 lakh, the life of this child will be saved but who will help this family? Will the so-called lawmakers who was about to give 2 crore for son of Prachanda in order to climb Mt. Everest; provide 2 lakh for the survival of Samundra? The answers to these questions are silent. The conditions of people are not acknowledged by these lawmakers. Children are getting kidnapped then killed for the money; people are getting robbed that is again for the money. These crimes are the means of getting out of poverty that’s why the rates of crime are increasing alarmingly. Either by killing others or killing oneself, people tends to get rid of poverty. They obviously have no other way out when leaders turn their deaf ear and blind eye towards such scenario.

A mother has become a murderer of her own dear children, today. A child is dying because he cannot pay for his treatment. A mother lets her children jump into the river and let them die. People are killing each other for the survival. Why? A sole reason: Money. Rich people are murdered because they have lots of money while poor people are committing suicide or murdering others because they don’t have enough money for their survival. In every corner of this world people are dying if not physically then mentally, just because of this destitution. Hence, we can draw a conclusion that in today’s materialistic world, life is always on a sale but death is free.

Pictorial Photokipa- 2012

While a line leads to the Fun park on the other side, a huge crowd is on this side to experience the first ever photography expo in Nepal. Huge pictures of various historical places, by the entrance welcome the visitors. People are taking pictures with those pictures as the backdrop and the crowd constitutes inestimable number of people. 

This is the scenario of Photokipa 2012 that took place in Bhrikuti Mandap for three consecutive days starting from the Nepali New Year 2069. The main motto of this expo was to show the development of photography from the yester years to till date and also to feature new forms of technology related to photography. The event was exclusively based on the photography. Huge crowd with aspiring photographers and valley locals filled the hall. It seemed as if whole valley had come to observe this mega event.

There were altogether 60 stalls with varied information regarding photography. Every stall had their unique style of presentation and their unique lot of information. There were beautiful pictures clicked by professional photographers as well as amateurs. A huge mock camera back from Elizabethan period greeted the visitors as they entered the hall with their tickets. Before the age of digitalization of camera and development of Photoshop, the size of the picture depended upon the size of a camera. In order to click huge pictures, they needed huge cameras. Such huge cameras (also placed in expo) were made in England during the Elizabethan period as per the wish of Queen Elizabeth to click the picture of a train. As for photography one requires various equipments apart from camera like: flashlight, exposure meter, and so on, advertisements and information about these things were also presented in some of the stalls.

The most interesting stall was that of Madan Babu Museum, also the first stall that visitors visited. It was from the museum of vintage cameras which were collected by Madan Babu. This stall displayed the cameras from history to till date.  The collector’s presentation of first historical camera and of development of those cameras was really remarkable. Similarly, the stall named ‘I am also a Photographer’ comprised the photographs clicked by different celebrities of Nepal like: Rajesh Hamal, Nima Rumba, Gopal Kashyapati and many more. The pictures were really good and eye-catching. Most of the pictures were of different beautiful scenes from our country. There were also stalls that consisted of photographs clicked by professional photographers. Most of them were at the far side of the hall. Those pictures were really easy on the eye. They were different or let’s say rather vibrant, and beautifully clicked. The reflected picture of the Krishna Mandir and shadowed picture of a temple were one of the best pictures hung over there. These pictures were presented in the event by the School of Creative Communication. Every picture has its own story and this was well-portrayed by Photo circle through different pictures from different times. The story of people in the picture was narrated under the picture. This stall was named as History begins at home. It was very fascinating and some stories were funny as well. There was another stall known as Old is Gold. This stall showcased pictures of beautiful temples and places of the valley before a century. Those classic pictures were really capable of touching the hearts of visitors. The collection was just so excellent. As the event was wholesomely about photography, the organizing team didn’t forget to remember the Legends of Photography. Creative D, itself presented the photos of legendary photographers of the country:  Gopal Chitrakar, Tri Ratna Manandhar and many more through their stall. There was also a digital art showcased in one of the cubicle. It was just so magnificent. One of those digital arts was even published in Naari Magazine during Dashain. It was picture of Goddess Durga attired in Nepali national dress. The artist behind this art was Jaya Sharma.

Social organizations also participated in this event. Traffic police demonstrated the photos of rule violators for example triple load in a bike is in itself a very risky ride but there were pictures of riders with five people in a single bike. Traffic police used mocking captions in those pictures to aware people about such dangers. There were pictures of many such nuisance makers which were quite funny but yet informative. There was information regarding nature photography as well and it was given by Wildlife Conservation Nepal (WCN). The stall imitated the wild scenario that gave the look of nature and wild. People were clicking pictures in that scenario. There were also the pictures of wild animals, insects and plants. Nature-lovers must have loved it.

There were also some profit making stalls that advertised their goods to lure the visitors towards their shop through the stall. The flashlight and other light equipments was presented by Elenchrom, the Indian company. Digital flex printing machine was also advertised right beside the Madan Babu museum. Samsung Galaxy tab showed their latest gadgets and must have been able to do the good marketing among that huge crowd and there was also the video cameras of Sony that got the attention. Apart from this, there were Grand Bank and Everest Insurance with their respective schemes of marketing. Grand Bank put forth a scheme that confirmed if you need to buy an camera and you need a loan then they would provide you with it but you need recommendation from few renowned photographers. Similarly, Everest Insurance provides insurance to the camera as you see, the cost of camera and its repairmen cost is reaching its height. There was also a cubicle of Eclipse animation. It was about the animating cartoons and the courses related to learn the animation. There were also stalls of Nikon, Canon, Foto Hollywood, and Oliz Store.

Apart from stalls and advertisements, there were also various programs on the main stage. At the very first day of the event, the organizing team was acknowledged and appreciated for their work and there was a live performance from Saptak. There was a fashion show conducted by the Namuna School of fashion and technology. The ramp show was named as Light, Camera and Fashion. The beautiful attire was designed by the Namuna for the models. The stunning models dressed in designer wear along with the camera was superb. Different themes were presented in the ramp show. Overall, it was fantastic. There was also a workshop conducted by the photo circle at the far end corner of the hall. The workshop was for the amateurs, semi-professional and professional photographers about the photography, storage of their treasures i.e. photos and many more. Event was surely a package of information about the photography. There was also a wedding photographs competition done by the Kathmandu Photographers Associate. The photographers were supposed to give the wedding pictures that they have clicked. Among those pictures, five pictures were selected as top five pictures. The 1^st prize winner got a video camera from Sony. There also was the chance of winning door-prize for the visitors who filled the form beside the ticket and dropped in the drop-box. Four door prize winners were selected.

The crowd, itself showed that the event had charmed the valley. People had come with cameras in their hand and clicking the pictures of the event. The organizer team encouraged visitors to bring camera by giving Rs.50 off for those visitors with camera. Surely, the event was remarkable. The comments on facebook pages showed that people really enjoyed the event and not only that people also expressed their regret for not being able to visit the expo. One of the visitors, Anutara Shakya, expressed that the event was really fascinating especially the history of cameras and stated that music along with the information was really cool. Another visitor put forth his comment in facebook as, “All the pics and classic cameras steal the show.” Similarly, another visitor, Mr. Naresh Manandhar put forth that the exhibition was really encouraging especially for the beginners of photography and the experience was really exciting. Therefore the expo was worth visiting.

The mastermind behind this mega event Mr. Raj Bhai Suwal stated that the photo fair in India and Photo Kina in Germany inspired him to bring this expo into the country. He had been thinking of doing this event since he saw the photo fair in India, 10 or 12 years ago. Hence the hard work paid off. This three day long program from Baisakh 1-3 was huge success. It really was extraordinary, outstanding and very much informative. If you missed this event of the year, you sure did miss something grand. The expo was just so WOW!!!